I dont rate Russel and he's a snitch Average at best defensively and inconsistent shioter and I don't see him as a great passer Ball will be much better Also, nonone can compete with that warriors team so why waste your time now? Philly are gonna start being an elite team in the next 2 years or so which hopefully coincides with a slight decline for the dubs Also lol at the wolves b big better than the rockets U seen their bench?
Byron Scott was right. D'Angelo's a punk. Attitude was bad, kid always been best in h.s. and AAU then he had to grow up and it stalled out. To parphrase a B.Scott story that I heard on C.Cowherd earlier this week which kind a sums it up for me: "Kobe always sat in the same chair for team video sessions. That fact everyone knew and respected. Except D Russell. Scottie comes into room for a session and sees Russell in Kobe's chair. Stares at Russell - who gives him that by now trademark "smirk" and then has to be told by Scottie to move to another chair." Bullshit like that begets a trade to the Nets. Good riddance.
I couldn't agree more with @EruditeHobo. And I don't give a crap about whether D'Angelo's a punk or snitch or anything like that. He's a young PG who, in his 2nd year, has shown flashes of being really good that I think are worthwhile to develop. Very few of the star NBA PGs in the league right now were doing jack at age 21/22, so frankly, I think any evaluation that doesn't take that into consideration is worthless. He has skills ball-handling, shooting is solid, he can play both on and off--ball, he has size, he's all right defensively, and as a former 2nd overall pick I think it's complete garbage that they traded him for a cap dump. It's organizational malpractice to not even try to see if a young backcourt of him and Ball could work.
Ice and my boy Alan discussing Iverson says "these people today talking about Lebron and Kobe should go and watch some videos about Mike" -"no one,comes even close to that man" Coming from this man..thats is hugeeee
The offseason hasn't even started yet. They'll likely add some free agents. The bench isn't that half bad. Lacks shooters, but has a lot of lenght and most of all defence. While they likely won't have the better record between the Clippers or the Rockets, I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to beat them in the playoffs.
When you're building a team, character and leadership can be pretty important. Or at least that's what Popovic told me but what does he know.
Firstly, I think it's important to note that the guy is 21/22 years old and not every 21/22 year old can be Mr. Character and Leadership in his sophomore season. Heck, this is a game where complete jerks like Kobe can win championships. I don't see the big deal with Russell's so-called character issues frankly. Seems like garden variety immaturity to me.
Russel seemed inconsistent to me and his mind is not right Cant ever see him being a great player so maybe his is a good move Ball is infinitely more talented imo
Yeah, he's inconsistent. So is virtually every rookie not named Embiid, LeBron James, or Anthony Davis. Just because he might never be a great player doesn't mean he wasn't an asset worth more than what they got for him. I don't understand why people think it was either/or with Ball and Russell. They both play off-ball and on-ball comfortably, they both shoot, neither's ball-dominant. We've seen backcourrts like this work before. Just look at Lillard-McCollum. The reality is I'm going to bellyache and be very angry about this trade unless Russell is complete trash with the Nets, so I'm not the right person to be rational about this.
Fair enough I think u guys would be better with a floor spacer next to ball in the back court The fa signings will be interesting this season, there's a couple of big names and available players. Seems like pg wants to go to la
If he had Kobe talent, we wouldn't be discussing this though. Hard to know what he's like behind closed doors and how the rest of the team feels about him. I get being patient with a young player, but if he's not working his ass off to improve and learn, I doubt it will change much. And don't think you can discount the GSW factor that all teams are contending with. Being better in the short term can be a negative.
I think the reality is some people are saying they matched up DLo and Ball and said "Ball is better long-term for what we want to do" and so DLo was traded in order to dump Moz' contract. That in and of itself is not a terrible deal considering the shittiness of Moz' contract and the promise of Ball... but that's not technically what happened. What happened is they threw out the plan for the past 2 years which had them with 5-6 really decent very young talents and a veteran core around them with an eye toward the future. They tried to slam on the brakes and throw that all away and for what? To be a mediocre at best team for the next few years to get the last years of PG. That's why it's dumb. It's stupid for this Lakers team to try and take great strides towards winning NOW. This is a slow rebuild process, not a Boston or Spurs or even Rockets "we have a superstar let's make some big moves RIGHT NOW" process
You lost me a little - how does this improve them right now in the short term? Isn't it the opposite by delaying their point guard development?
It's a move to create more cap space which will inevitably be used to bring in an aging star to pair with PG13 (in theory) to attempt a shortcut to short-term competitiveness, assuming that any stars wants to come here to begin with.
I guess it's one of the curses of being the Lakers, being truly terrible is a tough choice even in the short term - but PG isn't coming this season is he? I haven't paid much attention to the rumors.
The implication here is a little unfair to Mark Jackson. The two of them were 3rd and 2nd year players in Jackson's FINAL year there. All they were lacking was experience.
I would. I told people he was a sham from the jump. Phil is good at one thing ... taking the most talented team in the NBA and managing to win with it. Hooray. If he doesn't get handed an up and coming Bulls team with the best player ever, we aren't talking about Phil, as he wouldn't have gotten the Lakers job as a result of the success there. A big blowhard, frontrunner.
They were trying to lowball to get him ASAP. Looks like it's not happening now, but this trade was the first piece to them trying to get PG using more assets.
Fair enough, MJax doesn't get enough credit for instilling a defensive mentality. But the offense was not good. Not by a long shot. ATO post ups for David Lee wasn't getting the Warriors anywhere.
I think he was pretty smart about man management which shows he's intelligent and a decent judge of character. Not sure how you could know he was a sham. And he did draft Porzingis which was a decent move. The stupid tweeting stuff and getting into it with players is not the kind of thing he was known for. And it's hard to say if Dolan is giving him complete control since he seems to like certain players.
Michael Jordan was the man manager of the Bulls. He took Pippen under his wing, he kept Rodman in line (see what happened when Phil tried to manage him at the Lakers), etc. Phil was such a great man manager at the Lakers that his 2 best players hated each others guts and 1 had to be traded away as a result. Bottom line, Phil has had nothing but first world problems as a coach. It's like taking someone born into a family of $500 million in wealth, and praising him because he managed not to lose it and lording him as superior to people who inherited zippo and now "only" have $50 or 60 million in wealth they earned. Phil has been a smug, arrogant jerk from the beginning, all based on the fact that he knew he could act that way, as his PLAYERS were always superior to his opponents.
Anyone has any deeper insight on Kris Dunn? He seems like legit ball handler,like every rookie he does a lot of turn overs. I see flashes of great Play making abilities.power ball handler and seems to have sense of space and assist? Why Thibs was not impressed with him?
If you think The Bulls won that trade or got any kind of value back for Jimmy.. I truly feel bad for you. Dunn and LaVine are extremely limited compared to Butler as a rook and now.