Thanks, Jamie,
I had to leave early this morning to go to California City, CA on a consulting gig so I cobbled together the Christian Wood section of the article from previous articles and obviously screwed up the trade. I’ll fix the article later. Thanks for the alert.
The key to trading for Wood is selling him on the contract amount and the benefit of getting paid that amount to play for the Lakers. Once you sell Christian on the deal (3 years at $16 million per year for $48 million total), then you have leverage over the Pistons, although we’ll have to give them more than just Danny Green’s $15 million contract. That something is Kyle Kuzma, who’s a Detroit metro native having grown up in Flynt, MI.
So you’re right Wood would cost less than the other four both from a standpoint of trade assets and salary paid out. The S&T would limit what we could pay to keep KCP and Rondo but it would still be workable although we might run out of enough cap space under the $139 apron to use the full MLE. I might include McGee just to get more room under the apron to re-sign Morris and Howard.
Christian is not the proven player or defender as Turner but I think his potential offensively is way higher than Myles. Wood is a tiger attacking the rim and may have greater gravity from deep. And, like you pointed out, he is the cheapest option. And maybe the easiest to sign since we only have to get him to agree and then the Pistons have little choice.
The other thing that impresses me is Wood’s athleticism. He has some great hops and although needs to bulk to play the five all the time, can stay with guards attacking the rim and block their shots ala AD. He’s probably a reach for the veteran oriented Lakers but we can hope.
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LOL. Sorry about the lost comment. I’m writing this in Word because I’ve had the same thing happen to me. It’s the Youzer/Buddy Press plugin and I’ve notified them of the problem so hopefully it will fixed in the future. For now, this is my workaround with long responses.
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I also love Turner as he’s proven and bigger body than Wood but harder to land and would cost more in assets. But I would take him in a snap. The other option that I really like if the price is right is Obaka. Great defender and 3-point shooter.
I know most think we need a point guard but I think getting a 5 who can do what AD can do would have even more impact. Two pterodactyls protecting the rim would be like putting a lid over the basket or like that smaller rim coaches put on the rim to make it harder to shoot and give teams more rebounds to fight for. That’s why Wood and Turner would be great.
I do like Dipo and would gamble is we can’t land Wood or Turner. And I do agree there will be more competition for Holiday than any of the others. What made angry about Gerald taking about my post is that he misconstrued or misunderstood what I was saying, which was the Lakers should be at the top of the list of competitors going after Holiday because of his fit and experience with AD and Rondo.
Frank Vogel better make changes to the Lakers starting lineup for Game 2 because that game is a MUST WIN game for the Lakers. This is not Indiana or Orlando and despite the great job during the regular season, losing a first round playoff series to the Blazer will almost guarantee he will not be the Lakers head coach next season. We cannot go into a MUST WIN game with the same starting lineup that has fallen behind in 9 straight games.
Pulling Kuzma and inserting Green into the lineup with 8:02 left in the game after Kuz had scored 4 straight and 7 of the Lakers’ last 9 points to give us a 6-point lead was the move of a coach completely out of touch with the game. For the life of me, I cannot fathom why he did that. Danny Green was a liability at both ends of the court the entire game.
Just a quick, we were pathetic! If ya can’t make 3’s stop shooting them. Same ol KCP and Caruso is overrated. Green is past his value. Kux needs to play and give Waiters a chance. I still have Lakers vs Dame-time in 7.
I think the smarter solution is to put KCP back on the bench to start games. He and Green on the floor to start means too few ball handlers, too much one-dimensional basketball and too much on LeBron’s shoulders. It’s not that it won’t work, I just don’t think it will work enough. Promote either Waiters or Caruso to the starting 5 based on whether you want defense or firepower.
I dunno, works for Dame.