Yea, but I considered Pau the 4 being more mobile. Bynum slow, stayed down low. Listening to Metta on radio today got me thinking back to how big a part of those teams his D was. Cleaned up a lot for the bigs. Time flies: Metta will be a grandfather soon at 38 y.o. All-time Cool Daddy the best to listen to. Said he considers Lonzo a to-be great player. Talking about Zo’s drive last nite at end, Metta impressed with how Zo sold the move and collapsed D towards him to free Ingram. No-look pass there was big-time. Sucks we don’t play Philly again this season. Those were two epic games this year.
The play of Randle is making me sort of question the two-max gameplan Magic and Pelinka have chosen. Letting go of Julius just as he is starting to blossom, as we would need to to create the space needed for two maxes, feels like a really bad idea. Retain Julius, keep the flexibility open, and moving forward with this core for the time being seems a stronger optipn.
Lonzo's jumpshot has started to show signs of life, so that's good. But we took an L to the Cavs. I'm really disappointed in Lopez. We need a go-to scorer and I thought Lopez could be that guy, but his offensive output has been kind of bad, and while he does some things on defence, it's not enough. Lopez, on paper, looked like the best player we've had since pre-Achilles Kobe. But he isn't doing much to help the Lakers win. If Brook wants that big max in FA he needs to play like a big max player. Right now I feel like I'm basically watching Mozgov if he had good hands and shot threes at a marginal percentage.
We need Zubac with more mins. No upgrade in foot speed but Lopez is what you said: more of Timofey with a better 3 stroke. Want to head up to S.Bay and watch T.Bryant. Some decent skills.
Yea, beginning to doubt we need to splash on two “names.” P. George not exactly blending with OKC. We’ll be starting over again with new faces wanting mins. Could be major hassle.
Kuzma just dropped the mike. We ended Houston's 15 game streak. And Lonzo got a neat block on Harden.
Hart plays hard on defence. I like him, and considering that Caldwell-Pope is unlikely to be on the team next year, he could have a bigger role to play in the future. Unfortunately Harden might be the most difficult player to guard in the NBA right now.
“Might be”? Beard got whatever he wanted last nite. Free throws in free-fall. Whole team clanking away.
KCP has to pay $120.00/day for his min security jail cell. Cable tv and a few other perks. Wearing GPS anklet outside. Will that be tax-deductible? Still no photos but Seal Beach pretty small town. Kinda weird bit of biz going on here.
Bottom can’t be too far below now. Poor, half-ass effort agst T’Wolves backed by complete mess agst Memphis. Big games/good work agst Dubs /Cavs then throw away two winnable games. Immaturity. Time for Luke to show us some new takes.
Randle's minutes allocation is completely unacceptable, and Clarkson can't run an offence. Lonzo was a major loss. Hopefully he isn't out long.
Yea, more Randle. Clarkson I can live with because he’s aggressive but, not always high IQ moves. Lonzo lifted his level a lot then he’s out. Really tough one. Freethrows. Prolly still last in league. Takes us out of every game.
Yeah. At this point the Lakers will start seeing "hack-a-Laker... literally any Laker" defences any game now.
Pelinka pronounces us in great shape.......moving forward. As always. We got “Cap Health.” !!!’ Hohumm.......
I like our young core of players to build around. Ball, Ingram, Kuzma, and Randle is not a bad young group.
Of course. But, when the GM prattles on endlessly about cap space and big plans for the future, is it any wonder some of these guys feel like they aren't really what the "Future" is about and, maybe that sucks when you're busting your butt to perform right now? More "team meetings" coming. Caretaker Coach and players. Feels like the Van Exel, Vlade and Eldon Campbell days again. Good but not enough to get over the hump and then....voila, in walks Shaq, then Phil & Kobe and it was a whole new team and era.
Unfortunately Magic and Pelinka have sank, and will continue to sink, a lot of resources and opportunity costs into the 2018 offseason and attracting high-power free agents then. If it all works out and we end up with PG13 and LeBron/Cousins, it'd be really hard to argue with it. If they end the 2018 offseason with nada and their efforts to create cap space costed us wins and one of or both of Randle/Clarkson alongside D'Angelo Russell and Nwaba and the opportunity cost of signing potentially better players in 2017, then I become extremely irate. We've struck out too many times on thinking that "players will come cuz Lakers" that if Magic and Pelinka don't actually deliver on it, it wiĺl be a fireable offence. Magic and Pelinka will either be geniuses playing 4-D chess or fools struggling at Connect 4 in 2018. We'll see if they have the cache they seem to think they do.
“...they seem to think they do”. - what every GM has to sell to fans. Pelinka is coasting on a couple draft picks that worked - Ball & Kuz - but Lopez, KCP and Bogut aren’t exactly lighting things up on the FA signing side of things. ‘Cap Health’ tee-shirts anyone?
To be fair, this front office was upfront about the 2018 offseason being the one where they were going to spend aggressively and this year wasn't the one where they were going to commit to guys long-term, so their options were limited.
Sure, I bought in as there's nothing else to do with the frustration of 7 seasons of sliding away from the top of the league. The sun's out, it's been in the 80's around here and on we roll. Life's good. Happy New Year.