(06-21-2017 12:24 AM)PirateTreasureNC Wrote:  The Fakers are so desperate to be relevant again they will do anything.

Look, I've lost a lot of love for my home town team over the Kobe era, so I'm loathe to defend them too much, but this is just a bizarre statement. Of COURSE they're desperate to be relevant again! Every team in the league should be.

And by "do anything" you're implying that this move is somehow ill advised. I think it's a gamble but it's not an unreasonable one. Russell was a #2 pick but his trajectory is not at all clear. He's got very good tools but he lacks maturity and an all star future is not at all predictable. The Lakers had two of the worst contracts in the league with Mozgov (3 yrs remaining at $16MM/yr) and Deng (3 yrs remaining at $18MM/yr), and the only way to make them go away is by packaging young talent. With one of them gone, they've got room for one max contract and one near-max contract. That still (probably -
see below) doesn't make them Finals contenders but it gets them back as a solid playoff team with future opportunities. Right now they're dead in the water.

WTF do you think they should do differently?

Quote:The sad thing is, this whole looming "The Decision III" by LeBron looms over nearly every title contender or team that thinks they are one player away... meanwhile also placing the spectre of defeat over the Cavs.

I agree with this, and feel kind of sad that the Lakers are going through this because they think they might have a shot at LeBron. I don't want LeBron in LA, and I don't like the way Magic et al are going to have to genuflect to even get him to listen to a pitch. But if they can figure out a way to get a good free agent (like Paul George), if Lonzo looks as good as we think he can be, then I guess there's a non-trivial chance James comes to LA but I think it's still pretty slim.