Kid’s birthday last weekend, holiday prep coming up, and work is crazy busy.
Nice win, tho. I didn’t read much (anything) out of Russ not coming back into the game. He’ll play 40 minutes or so tonight without LeBron, only question being will he start. I doubt it. Ham, bless his rookie-head coach soul, has juuuuuust about nothing to work with so we’ll probably see ‘Bron sitting out one game of back-to-backs in the name of holding down the fort. Or maybe it’s his shooting. Don’t much care or really even see how it matters at this point.
Here’s my two-bits on how the Lakers can stay afloat:
-Waive Damien Jones. He’s just taking up space on our team. If Melo and Boogie can be brought onboard you have to do it. Maybe they spurn our dumpster fire but they can keep the offense going which is the side of the floor we should focus on. Our defensive identity, what little we had, went down with AD.
-Keep LeBron’s minutes reasonable OR limit his overall games played. This will of course mean keeping Russ who just plays in every game and plays hard in the face of an absurd level of criticism and expectation. Russ will be needed to drive ab offense without shooters or stars in the minutes and games LeBron is not on the court.
-Explore trades…but not for Russ, Nunn or PatBev. Sure, we can also do that. In fact adding PatBev to the trade I’m about to toss out there makes more than a little sense. the time has come to use those 2 FRPs to trade AD. Want to really go all-in? Then move the piece that can’t play to another team. Fans of AD will counter with how well he plays, his defensive impact and his unique skill set. I will look at one solitary stat that makes the rest irrelevant: games played. Out of 258 (to date but this disparity will grow even further) total NBA games played, not counting playoffs in or out of the Bubble, Davis has played in 163. Good for just 63.1% of total potential regular season games. Take away the 62 games he played his first season here, which was by far his healthiest, it gets staggeringly bad: 101 our of 194 or 52%. So, with the knowledge that there will never again be a Bubble-style playoff format, what real reason is there to believe he can get through anything close to 82 and be playoff ready? For a $39 million player, not to mention that assets we gave up in acquiring him, that is pretty terrible. I, for one, am done.
Who would I trade him for? Because of the really awesome and super beneficial Klutch connection you can’t trade him anywhere, he has to go to a preferred destination. If this were just about any other franchise it wouldn’t matter, they’d just go out and find the best deal. We’re one of a very, very small club of teams (maybe the only one?) that will want to make sure AD is relatively happy where he ends up. This basically means Chicago.
AD would be happy to go home, Chicago could be on the verge of pulling chips off the table this season and punting to next, and they have players that could help the Lakers. The Bulls have just about all their future draft picks but that’s the cost of jettisoning a superstar who can’t be counted on to be available. What players would come to LA? I would push hard for Vucevic ($22 mil and expires this summer), Caruso ($9 mil, 2 more years), and Coby White ($7.4 mil, expires).
Is that a banner winning team? Probably not, neither is the one we got. Along with Russ, PatBev and Nunn that equates to potentially (roughly) $103 mil in expiring money. Heck, use PatBev and no picks and see what kind of ill-fitting player you can maneuver this way on a non-expiring deal and you’ll still have plenty of money to retain what players you like and make some moves for a second tier star next summer. You’ll also not be much worse off than you are now roster wise because at least those guys play.
For almost an entire year the sports world has been focused on trading a Lakers star. I just think they’re focused on the wrong one. Let Chicago, or any other team, pile hope on a player marked FRAGILE. For me, that ship has sailed. We’ll thank AD for the banner, along with Danny Green, Dwight Howard et al, but he is never going to be the franchise pillar we hoped he would be. Time to pivot to the next move on this front.
I would wait to find out what this injury is before I would make any decision as important as trading Anthony Davis. But there’s something strange going on here. AD has no limp or boot. There’s some difference of opinion on rest or treatment? Fear of undiscovered Lisfranc injury that showed up? AD doesn’t look like his season or career is at risk.
I still don’t agree that the season is lost. Too early for that.
Or that we still could not win? Hopefully, the Lakers do too.
Funny how so many people have been through so much,
They’re ready to throw in the towel at the first road bump.
Hi, Jamie. Glad to see you pop up again. I was wondering what happened since you have been missing in action for a minute. But am glad you’re spending time with family and loved ones. That helps make the world go round. We all need that.
Anyway, thanks for the post. Great points! I like the idea of a Boogie and Melo reunion. By the way is Hassan Whiteside still playing?
As for AD’s trade possibility, I wonder if teams would be receptive to that idea knowing what they’ve also known about his frailty. It hurts to see the terrifying statistics of his lack of availability. That’s unreal. It is almost to the level of Greg Oden of the Blazers.