Since declaring they plan to re-sign D’Angelo Russell as their point guard of the future this summer rather than pursuing Kyrie Irving, the Lakers had their first opportunity to see Russell and Irving go head-to-head last night.
While it’s just one game, Kyrie Irving dominated play and his match up with D’Angelo Russell as three costly end-of-game mistakes by Anthony Davis caused the Lakers to lose a 111–110 heartbreaking buzzer-beater.
Irving posted 38 points on hot 14–23 shooting, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists with just 2 turnovers in 39 minutes. Russell posted just 11 points on poor 5–17 shooting, 2 rebounds, and 11 assists with 0 turnovers in 36 minutes.
Last night’s Mavs and Lakers game showed why the Lakers could still change their minds and decide to pursue a sign-and-trade for Kyrie Irving as their point guard of the future instead of re-signing D’Angelo Russell.
Kyrie is without doubt one of the most talented and hard-to-stop superstars in the league and performances like he had last night only make Lakers fans and even the Lakers front office more likely to rethink their position.
But the decision is not as simple as deciding between D’Angelo Russell and Kyrie Irving. It’s actually a franchise-defining decision to pursue the three-superstars model or the two-superstars and deep-and-diverse-roster model. It’s about what is the right strategy considering where the Lakers are right now as a team, what resources they have to make changes, and what kind of roster do they need to build around LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
As great an offensive player as Kyrie Irving is, D’Angelo Russell is still a better overall fit for Lakers than because he adds continuity, is younger, is taller and longer, is less expensive, and is more trustworthy and reliable.
1. Russell Improves Lakers’ Continuity
The Lakers desperately need continuity after three years of one-and-done rosters. If D’Angelo Russell continues to play like he has, the Lakers need to re-sign him long-term rather than trying to trade him for a third superstar.
After turning over almost their entire roster other than superstars the past three summers, Los Angeles reversed that strategy at the trade deadline by focusing on trading for younger players who would be great long-term fits.
Based on what we’ve seen in the 9 games he’s played, Russell already is proving to be the perfect point guard for the Lakers. He’s averaging 17.9 points, 3.6 boards, and 6.4 assists in 29.8 mpg shooting 44.5/37.1/82.8%.
The Lakers think they have at least three more years of LeBron James as a superstar and building continuity by re-signing D’Angelo Russell long-term, as well as their other new additions, should be be a top offseason priority.
2. Russell Makes Lakers Younger
The Lakers would be wise to prefer the now 27-year old D’Angelo Russell over the soon-to-be 31-year old Kyrie Irving as the former gives Los Angeles four more years in the heart of his prime than the latter is able to offer.
Russell just turned 27-years old while Kyrie turns 31 years old this month, making him almost 4 years older. Essentially, Russell is just now entering what will be his prime while Kyrie could be nearing the end of his prime.
It’s fascinating to watch the evolution of the Lakers’ roster average age. In 2019–20, Lakers’ average age was 30.0 years. In 2020–21, it was 30.9 years. In 2021–22, it was 27.1 years. In 2022–23, it’s now down to 25.6 years.
Assuming the D’Angelo Russell we’ve seen is the D’Angelo Russell we get, the Lakers would be foolish to give up a budding young star just entering his prime for a superstar with questions who’s close to past his prime.
3. Russell Adds Size & Length
Some of the Lakers’ early struggles were because of the physical makeup of the roster, which lacked size and length at almost every position, especially point guard where Darvin Ham usually started the 6′ 1″ Dennis Schroder.
Aside from adding needed shooting and defense at the trade deadline, Pelinka also added critical positional size throughout the Lakers roster, including point guard with the 6′ 4″ Russell who has a 6′ 10″ wingspan.
Russell uses that size and length along with changes in pace and direction to control the speed and tempo of the game. He’s not an above-the-rim player like Westbrook or Morant. He’s a game manager with swag.
Where Russell’s size and length have really helped the Lakers has been on defense. Since he’s joined the Lakers, D’Angelo’s 103.5 defensive rating has been second only to LeBron James 98.5 for the last 14 games of the season.
4. Russell Is Less Expensive
One of the major reasons for preferring to re-sign D’Angelo Russell rather than trading for Kyrie Irving is their relative annual salaries. D’Angelo might be willing to sign for $30 million while Irving wants $47 million.
The Lakers learned first hand from the Russell Westbrook experiment how paying maximum salaires to three superstars makes it almost impossible to build a deep and diverse roster to support and complement the superstars.
There’s a good chance the Lakers could re-sign Russell to a 4-year $120 million contract whereas Irving is reportedly seeking a $47 million per year max deal. Bottom line, Irving is a superstar while Russell is simply a star.
The problem with the 3-superstars model is not having enough cap space left to build a deep, diverse roster. Re-signing a star like Russell rather than a superstar like Irving enables Lakers to build deeper, more diverse roster.
5. Russell Is More Trustworthy & Reliable
The single biggest reason the Lakers should re-sign D’Angelo Russell rather than trying to trade him for a third superstar in Kyrie Irving is Dlo’s proven to be a more reliable and trustworthy throughout his professional career.
In today’s NBA, a player’s greatest ability is unfortunately his availability. Over his eight full seasons in the NBA, Russell has averaged 72 games per season compared to Irving’s 55 games per season over his eleven seasons.
More importantly, since signing with the Brooklyn Nets, Kyrie has played in only 103 or 43% of the 236 available games for a variety of reasons ranging from injury to unvaccinated status to various personal reasons.
The Lakers need leadership from their point guard and D’Angelo has now matured and shown he can be trusted to efficiently execute a game plan, and provide solid leadership and personal reliability on and off the court.
Rob Pelinka and the Lakers made smart decisions in rebuilding their roster via trades at the deadline with D’Angelo Russell one of the critical additions that’s transformed the Lakers into legitimate championship contenders.
While last night’s loss to the Mavs was disappointing and discouraging, the Lakers are still just 2 games out of the 6th seed with 11 games to go. Their chances and confidence of making the playoffs drop with every new loss.
Whether the Lakers without LeBron James can run the gauntlet and make the playoffs is not as important as watching the team finally make smart long term decisions and build a roster with great promise for next season.
Kyrie Irving may have won last night’s lead-to-head with D’Angelo Russell but in the long run the Lakers should stay the course and understand Russell is the better fit as the Lakers point guard of the future than Irving.
https://twitter.com/LakerTom/status/1637156303499055105
I agree with this pretty much 100% but my concern is that a game like last night where all the new additions weren’t able to stop or overcome Kyrie. That sort of thing feeds into their “superstars rule over team” theory/fantasy.
I dunno JS, the only balanced team without Supers were Hamster’s Pistons that romped us. Not saying we need 3 Supers, but we at least 2 plus surroundings that can hold on if 1 Super goes down. I prefer if we keep AD and LBJ, Ky is the fit. Other wise I go DLO and trade AD. We’ve way over estimated this comradery of these new guys (the gang that can’t shoot straight, lol!
Player vs Player I’m taking Kyrie everytime. But the Lakers salary structure makes it pretty much impossible and also foolish. We’ve already seen what it looks like when you try to surround 3 huge salaries with a buncha minimum salary castoffs…it don’t work. Add to that you’d have 3 guys where you can’t pencil them in to even play 60 games a piece. Rob needs to continue to dismantle the garbage he put together over the last 2 years…not make the same mistake twice.
I agree. One thing to look at is trade possibilities. Beasley, Bamba and Reed add up to 30 mil in tradable contracts. Even though they are not guaranteed they are technically under contract so they could be traded at the draft for an upgrade.
We 10th, but we have 37 losses. Losses mean everything. I am thinking 4-7 in the last 11, unless LBJ comes back. If we can’t beat Houston and then Luka-Less Dallas at home, I have very low expectations. : (
https://twitter.com/LakerTom/status/1637227283982462976
Not all about skills. It’s a head game as well. Member Magic, MJ, Kobe and LBJ smarts!
We lost a game that we had won. And it’s on AD and others who missed free throws. But what I’m seeing on the blogs is that Dallas was some bad team without Luka. We were without LeBron so that was a wash. But the Mavs were favored in Vegas. Yes they didn’t have Luka but they are a good team without him. It was a missed opportunity for sure but it doesn’t mean we are a terrible team. The were one point better than us.
Great points, Michael. One loss at this point does not eliminate us. We just missed a great opportunity to move up. Cats only have 9 lives.
Always be sure to do homework. Did not say we are a terrible team, just NOT GOOD. Seems like we have, again, inconsistent G-Leaguers.
Austin, Dennis, Gabriel. And Rui all had good games. DLO didn’t shoot well but he had 11 assists and no turnovers and was a plus 6. Even AD was okay, he just made a series of bad plays in the last 7 seconds. Hardly G leaguers. When you call them g leaguers that implies you think they are bad. We lost to a good team by 1 point when their superstars was hot. Happens.
True, but I think all of us get sold on the 3pt shooters: Bullock, Ellington, Beasly, Pat Bev, TB JR, Walker 4 and the list goes on. Can’t think of hardly anyone we’ve had is a real 3pt threat when need. These MAJOR LEAGUERS seem to show up every 5 games.
Also know that if you are in the NBA, you are good.
Where I completely disagree is that the moves made at the deadline somehow make this season a success. They do not. A losing season is a losing season, lipstick on a pig changes nothing except that you got a pig with red lips. It looks like one team or another that holds the tie-breaker over us will land at the 6 spot. So that means we’re really 3 games back. Missing the playoffs isn’t really acceptable but, if we can move through the playin and get to a favorable Kings matchup and move past the first round that would mean the current squad had grown together and is worth keeping some to most around. The calculus that’s being wholly ignored is the willingness of ownership to spend.
Who are we beating in the next 11games JS? Your thoughts.
Some, all, none…I don’t know. The energy and focus have a really high degree of variance with this team.
Magic beat Clipps.
So let’s look at some numbers. The projected salary cap for 2023-24 is $134 mil. If we waive Bamba by 6/29 (leaving only James, Davis, Vanderbilt, Reed, Christie & Swider) we’re sitting at about $95.5 mil in salaries. Pick up Malik’s option and that jumps to $112ish mil. You’re already looking at just an estimated $22 mil in cap space. That’s why I think, given his struggles, the Lakers will let Malik go. The Lakers need to be a lot smarter than they showed themselves to be the summer they gave THT a big contract and low-balled Caruso. They over-valued the Klutch relationship and under-valued what matters: on court fit. They compounded that mistake with the Westbrook trade.
So, if I had a say, I would advocate to keep Reaves and Rui. Offer both $10 mil when free agency hits with player options for the following season and team options for the one after that with decent raises built in. Offer LW4 the MLE again or use it in a similar player. That leaves D-Lo. As you say, he’s entering his prime but has yet to separate himself from the good players to a great one. $30 mil will be the starting point and if another team that needs a PG that can score, pass and defend well-enough (that line is always long) goes up to $35-40 mil what do the Lakers do? Now you’re looking at being just over the cap at $123 mil if you succeeded in signing Reaves and Rui for $10/ea. and LW4 (or similar player) to the projected $7 million. With 9 players under contract. Wenyan maybe signs for the vet minimum, again, if no team offers him more. That’s 10. The vet min deals count as a fraction of their worth against the cap. I don’t see the Lakers going over $40 mil to keep Russell. Maybe $45 which is about what we spent on this season’s team. A team that isn’t .500 with 11 games to go and outside the playoffs.
The team above will cost a few mil more than this season’s. It doesn’t even account for our draft pick, keeping our 2-ways, or keeping either Mo or Malik. If LeBron and AD are about as available as they have proven to been that’s not a contending team. That’s a team built on the hope that others fail.
I disagree. The trade deadline was important for this season because we’re no longer in the new-roster-every-year mode now. Even if we don’t win, we’ve come a long way learning how to win without LeBron.
I’ve never bought into the fake idea that it’s championship or bust. Every championship that’s been won was built by moves in the preceding years. The trade deadline saved this year from being a waste.
We may not win a ring but we made great progress getting back to contender level this season, changes that will have a major impact on the franchise’s future for the rest of the LeBron James era.
Making the moves at the trade deadline rather than waiting until next summer was an important step in getting a jump start on building a championship roster. The time spent together will give the team invaluable information with which to make decisions this summer.
It’s rate that every move a team makes works out. We brought in five rotation players. I still believe there’s a chance 3 or 4 of the 5 rotation players we added could be kept long-term.
We will also have 2 picks and $30M in tradeable contracts with Beasley and Bamba if there’s a chance to go out and get a player like Anunoby or Turner.
You don’t actually know any of the above. We could watch everyone who is not under contract walk and the Lakers throw the kitchen sink at Kyrie or make a trade for Lillard with our contracts and cap space. You have no clue what the Lakers will do and neither do I. You HOPE that the front office has learned some lesson. I do, too, but will not be surprised if, should this squad miss the playin, they all end up elsewhere.
The calculus that isn’t being brought up is the money spent after we hit $134 mil. That will define everything. If, for some reason, Jeannie decides that this team which has had multiple chances to get to .500, is worth a massive tax bill, maybe we keep the players mentioned and Malik B. The tax bill, for the Lakers, will be high.
Do you really think that Buss will pay $112 million for Russell and Beasley when she wouldn’t pay $30 mil for Caruso…who was a key player on a champion?
What I love is how you just posted about the importance of roster cohesion, chemistry and all that while at the exact same time mentioning how we might only keep a couple, maybe even a few, players. That’s not even touching on Austin or Rui or LW4. You’re basically advocating for 3 or 4, maybe 5, players who have barely played with LeBron and are about.500 with AD being a contender and worthy of a potentially massive tax bill. While I admire your enthusiasm I just don’t see the logic. I doub that the cheapy Lakers will, either. That’s why I really want this group, right now, to push and fight their way into the playoffs and at least force a real conversation about keeping them together. Because if they don’t it won’t be a conversation.
Jeannie didn’t even want to make the Russ trade.
Somehow Rob got her onboard (likely with the low cost, low risk aspect of the deal as it allows the front office to keep it’s absurd plan to pursue a mega star in place). That is not a vote of confidence.
Always rooting for doom and gloom…
Always sticking your head in the sand…
I’m just bringing up legitimate concerns based on patterns of well-established behavior. Feel free to ignore them. We will not go over the apron to keep a team that is neither .500 or a playoff team together. Guaaaaaaaaaaranteeeeeeeeeed. Not “rooting for doom and gloom”. You show me the smart decisions the front office has made since Rob took over balanced against the bad, stack ‘em on up and see what you’re left with. The Lakers do have the potential to make a lot of hopefully good choices this summer. To me, that means very little at this juncture. Every loss makes it more likely that they make a bad decision. If that’s a “win for the season” or whatever I ain’t buying.
It doesn’t matter barring some miraculous string of health for a Lebron and AD. So far the ONLY player who took the crazy max and wasn’t a detriment to his team was Steph, but that’s obviously an oversimplification. You can’t pay Lebron 50mil at this stage of his career and seriously expect to compete. That mistake has poisoned the well as much as any of their (far too many to name) foolhardy moves. This team was cooked when they extended the washed king cuz that’s the brand I spose.
The tax apron is 162 mil which is the level we pay tax. so we could pretty much keeps everybody because of bird rights if we wanted to and not go to far over the apron. DLO Is rumored to want 25 mil for 4 years. Which is fair for his skill level. Although you might see guys signing 1 + 1 with a huge cap increase expected in 24-25. As far as Bamba and Beasley, we can keep them, cut them, trade them or re-negotiate a more appropriate deal. So we hold all the card.
The Lakers will not go over the apron. They have shown that to be an inherent philosophy for years now. But, for the sake of debate, let’s say they do. Still think D’Angelo will not be taking a pay cut. He made $31+ mil this season. That’s the negotiating floor. I don’t see him doing the team that traded him to get rid of Mozgov any favors and this could be his last chance at a big payday. Maybe the market dictates a lower floor, maybe higher as that remains to be seen. Same goes for Reaves. I want to say the bidding starts at 8 mil but, honestly things being as they are, it won’t surprise me if a team goes to $10 day one. I thought we held all the cards the season after the Bubble and we blew it. Big. Maybe lessons were learned, maybe they weren’t.
Jamie they were over the cap last year and this year.
As a matter of since the tax began in 2001, we are 5th in the league in taxes paid.
Said/meant tax apron, which we did not go over this season. Now, hopefully, that means they wanted to just reset the repeater tax (which I’m not sure but believe they did) and will keep most or all the new guys. We’ll have to see. Regardless, my hopes aren’t high if they can’t even make the playin.
Actually we are siting at 169 mil and the apron is 156 mil this year.
Was reading a Spotrac grid that made it look like we paid 0 in taxes, possibly read it wrong (eyes old and mind tired w/east coast time change). My point is, minor amount or more of taxes paid or not, NBA scuttlebutt says Jeannie didn’t want to pull the trigger on the Russ trade. That’s astounding to me, if true. Furthermore, should we not get to .500 with the current cast of Lakers, make the playoff/in, then I have high doubts that we keep a lot of the current roster. Which means we’ll be doing exactly what we’ve done the past two seasons making it a trifecta of anti-team building. Furthermore, I’ve known plenty of card players that had a great hand a squandered it. Having good cards is but a small facet of the game as a whole.
In short I don’t believe the season could be qualified as a success just because we traded Russ. It was likely he was going to be gone by next season, anyhow. We just paid a smallish price to move him at the last moment (really ought to have been done last summer) and audition some guys on smaller deals. We can pick up the options on Bamba and Beasley and trade then, yes (if there’s a market for a $10 mil center who can’t score in the post and a $16.5 mil sniper with a penchant for missing) but have to trade them for someone under contract already, we’ll be hard capped if they sign an extension.
Really I just don’t have a lot (sic:any) confidence that we’re not going to pursue an aged-superstar, especially if these guys don’t get the job done.