Or Sunday night.
Or August 4th.
Or Start of Training Camp.
Or Start of Season.
Or Trade Deadline.

Actually, what has changed is the Lakers have a viable Plan B in the Pacers and Buddy Hield and Myles Turner for Russ and two picks. That gives them some leverage to push the Nets to trade Kyrie, who’s obviously Plan A. Lakers won’t move on Plan B until they’re sure there’s no chance for Plan B, even if it means they end up getting stuck with Russ. At least that appears to be the plan right now. But that there is a way to trade Russ is big news. May not mean a championship but it’s a huge step in the right direction.

Good luck

Great defense by Warriors forcing Tatum and Brown to their weak hand in traffic to force turnovers. Unbelievable that the Dubs were able to win with Steph going 0-9 from deep.

I would give a ton of credit to the Warrior’s defense. They were forcing the Celtics to turn the ball over and over Lakers style. That won’t get the job done. Also, Andrew Wiggins is proving to be a big time star and a force to be reckoned with.

Nevertheless, I am impressed with the Celtics’ efforts and tenacity. They just need to bring down that turnover dome. Plus, a long playoff run is pushing them to the limit. They are showing some signs of fatigue, and lack of experience when it mattered.

“So yeah, one of the intentional sort of philosophical, architectural visions for us is to get younger and Coach Ham has a passion for developing players. So it would be a goal for us to try to somehow get into the second round to get a young player that we can develop. We’ve had great success if you look at our draft history and the guys we’ve drafted and developed. We think we can do it again in 2022 if we can pull off a trade to get a pick.”

I’ll be fine as long as it’s not MDA or MJ. Just don’t think they’re a treat fit for the team or franchise.

I’m giving 50/50 odds we hire Luke again…

This has all the signs of getting worse before it gets better.

It all starts from the top, like it does in any business or organization. Jeanie Buss simply does not have many of the executive skills somebody running a major company or organization needs to be successful. Most importantly, she doesn’t have the #1 attribute that any good sports team owner needs to have, which is the ability to hire pros who know what they’re doing and then let them run their business.

Instead, she’s like a ship in choppy waters surrounded by a bunch of old friends aka sycophants whose artificially inflated value to the Lakers is questionable at best and criminal at worst. Instead of hiring pros who know what to do, Jeanie listens to her close friends and basically survives because the Lakers are a legacy in their own has shown the ability to survive mismanagement numerous times in the past.

And that’s the problem. The Lakers as a franchise have been incredibly successful but have also left a lot of championships on the court because of inept and unprofessional management of the franchise by the family that owns and controls the team: Jerry Buss, then Jim Buss, then Jeanie Buss. The best we can probably expect is Joey and Jesse Buss to be next in line.

I guess incompetence is the price required of pro sports franchises that are legacies like the Lakers, Yankees, and 49ers. If any of these franchises were run professionally, those teams would have even more championship banners.

In the end, the Lakers will be fine because they’re the Lakers and ultimately are such a great franchise they can handle the constant dysfunction of the Busses.

Honestly, I am very disappointed with the Bulls. They had things going full throttle at the beginning of the season only to see them nosedive to end the season. The same goes for the Cavs. But you are spot on with Grayson Allen. That dude should never be allowed to have any impact whatsoever on their playoff life. Very disappointed with their performance.

Lol, feel the same. Weird they’ve just let him run roughshod like this. Dude is dirty and dirty deserves what it gets . Which should be knocked the eff down.

One other thing that I’m noticing as I watch this opening round of the post-season is the quickness of some of these teams and I feel like it something that we sorely lacked this season. I’m not talking about “pace” because obviously we like to get out & run the break. I’m talking more about lateral quickness especially in the half court on both offense & defense. Probably has something to do with our rebounding issues as well as our overall bad defense and our seemingly lack of ability to come up with all those 50/50 balls. Not sure if any of these proposed trades help in that area.

“Bottom line” is that eventually we need to get younger and quicker.

Good post, Mongo. Franky, as much as I am obsessed with what the Lakers could get back in trade this summer to rebuild team and how important that will be to our chances to win another ring with LeBron, the truth is what we do this summer is secondary to whether LeBron and Anthony can elevate their play again to be top five players or whether their moment in the sun has come and gone.

That tells me that single biggest thing the Lakers need to do when deciding whom to trade for this summer is finding players who truly fit well with LeBron and AD and whose presence will free up, complement, or help LeBron and AD play better. In other words, fit is king. Everybody we add has to fit. No exceptions. That’s the biggest mistake everybody made last year. We ignored fit and surrounded LeBron and AD with players who didn’t free up, complement, or help LeBron and AD do this job.

Here’s the point that’s important, surrounded by the ‘right’ players, we know LeBron James and Anthony Davis can dominate opponents and win a championship. We don’t need to bring in three starters that are better or even as good as the starters on our competitors’ teams. We just need to bring in three who fit with and complement our two superstars.

Were we to get Turner, Hield, and Brogdon, for example, I think that would be a championship caliber team, especially with a bench that included Nunn, Monk, Reaves, Johnson, and Gabriel. Provided we stay healthy, those three would make LeBron’s and Anthony’s jobs so much easier not only because they’re far better players than the guys they replaced but because they all fit.

Turner solves the size, rim protection, and points in the paint problems and unleashes AD to be our top scorer and 1-on-1 lock down defender. Hield gives us that high volume, high percentage, high gravity 3-point shooter we need to beat paint packing defenses. And Brogdon gives us the size we need to be able to switch more successfully on defense and better ball security.

We add three veterans who all can stretch the floor, including the league’s best shot blocker, #2 highest volume 3-point shooter, and a big point guard who can shoot, pass, and defend. Good as they are, it’s what they free up LeBron and AD to do that makes the team a championship contender.

I don’t think any of the moves make us sure-fire contenders but there aren’t many teams that check that box. I wasn’t even of the opinion that the team that did win the title was a sure-fire winner. So many things broke right for that team and we did end up winning it all. A lot of those things will never happen again, especially the three month break just before the playoffs.

In the end I think LeBron’s window here has basically closed. 82 + playin (potentially) + playoffs = too many games for a dude his age. No shame in that, just how it goes. Yes, he put up astounding, historical numbers for a guy his age. But he did so in a way that didn’t translate into wins or often even close games. He, was in essence, one of those guys we see on other teams who don’t have a legit superstar and bloated numbers because somebody has to shoot it.

We can continue to delude ourselves that healthy LeBron and AD are all we really need but that’s just smoke up the rear. They will never be 100% come playoffs, one or both will have something going on, like all players, and AD isn’t tough enough to push through. It’s just who he is. Like Kobe wishing for Black Swan Pau we will continue to hope that AD discovers his inner tough guy but I don’t believe it exists.

Furthermore that narrative has a cute way of ignoring something important: the rest of the team that helped them win. LeBron and AD did not win a banner all on their own. Rondo, Danny Green, KCP, Kuz, Caruso, Dwight and JaVale all had huge roles in that journey and they were all, basically, shown the door as a result. Would that team have turned around and won it all the next season? We’ll never know.

Given our cap situation, guys who we have Bird Rights for, draft assets and general vibe of the franchise I don’t see us winning another title with LeBron on the roster. If I were Rob I take all the calls for all the players on the roster. He won’t, because he’s a mediocre GM, but he should.

May as well sit AD then. No sense in getting him hurt again when you’ll be exploring trade packages.

I think that’s a valid point. The counter is that the picks could be gold since they’re post-LeBron. Probably have to make them unprotected to give them real value. We’ll see. They obviously don’t have as much value as a 2022 draft pick. That’s for sure.

We got Magic that way.

You are completely right, Mongo. I don’t even know what to say here. This was a complete disaster. And that doesn’t describe how disappointed I am with the team, from the coaches down to the very last man on the bench. When you let a team shoot lights out from the three and your defense is nowhere to be found you might as well stay home rather than embarrass yourself in such a humiliating fashion. Don’t know what effect this has on the Lakers psychologically, but it is certainly not a good sign at all.

The only good thing to happen tonight is the Clippers losing which gives us a fighting chance in the standings. But that won’t matter if we can’t get our stuff together.

All valid points, Mongo. We’re at the halfway mark of the season and our 7th place position pretty much sums up how we’ve played to this point despite having a favorable schedule. We are what we are: a 42-40 play-in team based on what we’ve seen.

Can that change? Sure, especially when we get Anthony Davis and Kendrick Nunn back or if we make a big trade for Myles Turner or Jerami Grant or anything to balance the roster and give us some more size for our small ball lineups.

What’s troublesome is we haven’t beaten any of the teams we are likely to face in the playoffs in the West: the Grizzlies, Suns, and Warriors. So nobody can say right now that our resume shows we can be more than what we are. There are promising sings but they’re offset by troubling signs.

Personally, I’m not going to let last night’s game bother me. Sometimes, you just can’t hit shots and the Grizzlies are clearly a legitimate top four team in the West with no question. Simply put, we’re going to have to (1) make a deal to get more size and defense and (2) play a whole lot better the second half of the season and peak heading into the playoffs.

I’m always gonna put more weight on how we perform against good teams. Steel on Steel. We ain’t gonna see SacTown in April & May…

It was a nice little run. Now comes the real deal. Frittered away the easy part might be the thing that makes this too hard for these guys. Also hard for me to see a different player or two resulting in a sea change but you never know. That certainly has happened with teams in the past where a guy moves into a better situation and rediscovers the joy de vivre.

It’s ironic and expected that our opinions on AD playing the five would lead to us completely differing in our opinion of the move to replace Gasol with Jordan.

To you, Mongo, it’s evidence we’re going back to our 2020 championship formula with two big centers to limit the time AD played the five, meaning we’re going to repeat the JaVale/Dwight rotation with the DeAndre/Dwight rotation.

That would make sense had we not made a move to bring in a point guard who can’t shoot the three. You can’t create any spacing with only a single elite 3-point shooter in the lineup. That’s why AD said he would play more 5 when he and LeBron met with Russ.

The argument of starting Gasol had merits. It worked last year in the regular season and it did create more spacing than a low post center in the dunker position would. But Russ changes everything. AD MUST play the five now. Anybody can see that. The Lakers may play around trying to bully ball everybody but teams will pack the paint with glee and hope the Lakers miss, which they won’t as much this year. Problem is still you need a shooter with 3-point gravity with Westbrook at the 1.

One thing I do know for sure is Vogel has a serious jigsaw puzzle to deal with when it comes to sorting out his rotation this season. What I am also seeing in the makeup of this roaster is the meticulous plan and attention given to the marathon season by having insurance at the five. There is no way I would expect AD to play the five throughout the season even though it is our best option. There will also be certain matchups that will not work in his favor. So to prepare for those situations is where I count on our traditional centers. After all, we had success with that formula in the bubble. The only question I have is are we going to settle for three centers? That part hasn’t been clear yet. Hopefully, we will find out sooner rather than later.