OT: LeBron To LA Lakers
- Thread starter Tango Two
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Was losing hope after George resigned with okc and Leonard talks seemingly crumbled.
ESPN ticker showed 7-2 odds for lakers winning championship....seems off considering the rest of the team but who knows.
ESPN ticker showed 7-2 odds for lakers winning championship....seems off considering the rest of the team but who knows.
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The whining and complaining of NBA "fans" starts next year, when Kawhi Leonard joins Lebron on the Lakers.
Signs a 4 year deal which allows the Lakers to be a little more patient adding a additional pieces. Right now seem short of contending for a title. At some point father time is going to start catching up with LeBron. While he seems smart in how he plays to conserve energy, the window on him leading a team to a title can't be more than another couple of years.
Learned his lesson after last time. No press conference, under the radar.
This was decided awhile ago.
but the other moves are puzzling...I understand James' "agent"/buddy Paul also represented Pope, who got $12M, above market. Not sure if he represents Rondo or Stephenson, etc...that was part of the problem with Cavs, as his agent represented JR Smith and Tristan Kardashian.
BTW, Warriors reportedly signed Demarcus Cousins to a 1-year contract. Awesome move on both sides. Lets Cousins ease back in and prove himself for a big payday next season. What a crazy lineup.
BTW, Warriors reportedly signed Demarcus Cousins to a 1-year contract. Awesome move on both sides. Lets Cousins ease back in and prove himself for a big payday next season. What a crazy lineup.
The Warriors lineup next year is ridiculous.
Curry (5x All Star, 2x NBA MVP)
Thompson (4x All Star)
Durant (9x All Star, 2x Finals MVP, 1x NBA MVP)
Green (3x All Star)
Cousins (4x All Star)
...with Iguodala (1x All Star, 1x Finals MVP) off the bench.
Curry (5x All Star, 2x NBA MVP)
Thompson (4x All Star)
Durant (9x All Star, 2x Finals MVP, 1x NBA MVP)
Green (3x All Star)
Cousins (4x All Star)
...with Iguodala (1x All Star, 1x Finals MVP) off the bench.
Curry, Thompson, Durant, Green, and Cousins could be one of he the best starting lineups ever.
It could be right up there with the 86-87 Celtics with Johnson, Ainge, Bird, McHale and Parish and the 87-88 Lakers with Magic, Scott, Worthy, Green, and Jabbar.
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This was a pretty badly kept secret. LeBron's son had committed to playing his school basketball at an LA school over a month ago.
the Miami Heat were the beginning of player created teams.
Durant knew OK wouldn't be able to bring in the FA talent like Miami did.
LeBron felt the same with his hometown and Magic is willing to go the Heat - Warrior route making it easier for James to compete for the title and be the face of the team.
Curry still rules in Frisco but Durant made his own place in the hearts of Frisco fans.
Thompson, Curry, and Green were all drafted by them, and they won a championship in six games against a Cavaliers team that was missing it's #2 and #3 players to injury for the Finals... and then they lost the following year to a healthy Cavs.
That's when they added Durant and became a super team... and now have added Cousins on top of that.
They're not "completely manufactured" - but the addition of Durant (made possible by Green taking $15M less salary) put them over the edge, and now getting Cousins at the mid-level exception (millions below his value) just further pushes that envelope. They are a team that the salary cap is supposed to prevent - but it can't stop star players taking less salary than they are worth to win more rings.
Pierce was drafted by Boston, Garnett acquired by trade and Allen the same.
Boston's main men were drafted (1) and brought in by trading for them, not FAs teaming up to make getting a championship easier.
Durant went on his own, but the roster was good enough to have won the title 2 years before.His going to Warriors gave Golden St a better chance to take it all again.
The NBA has a huge problem and it is getting worse. They need to apply collusion and tampering rules to players talking to players.
LeBron was the original coward going to Miami because Wade and Bosh joined him. He panicked that he wouldn’t win a championship with Cleveland and bailed for some rings without all the pressure of having to be The man.
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Agreed, this super team collusion crap started with him. But GS is taking it to a new level and they are to blame as well. This is why the NBA sucks. With a straight face, how many teams have a chance to win the title this year? We have GS.....and then we have GS, then I think, GS, and probably, um, GS.
Seriously, Houston and Boston have tiny chances, but that means 27 other teams are essentially eliminated as of July.
Is this a serious post?
I really don't understand why this bothers people so much. It's called free agency.
Free agency is fine, just like owners can collude, neither show players. It's destroying the league.
Players talk to each other all the time. Before games, during games and after games.
They can't collude lol. They have no power to draft, trade, release or sign anyone. The NBA is fine healthier than it's ever been as a league.
What player drafted, traded, released someone?
Team ownership has always communicated with their most important players when it comes to adding new players. Team chemistry being important and all.
It happens in every sport. It happens in every day life. The first phone call I got about leaving a radio station I worked at came from an on-air personality I knew at a competing radio station. Not somebody in management at my competitor.
Plus collusion, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't exist unless a rule or a law was broken.
NBA likely has never been healthier...NBA takes over June/July now with NBA Finals, draft, then free agency...the drama is compelling...
Will be interesting to see how GSW fills out bench, who will be willing to take less money to chase a ring.
Feel as though Philly may have squandered its chance (idiot Brown, who lost the semis for 76ers to Celtics with horrible, truly horrible coaching) to upgrade in off-season...wasted lottery pick and let a few key bench players go...
Will be interesting to see how GSW fills out bench, who will be willing to take less money to chase a ring.
Feel as though Philly may have squandered its chance (idiot Brown, who lost the semis for 76ers to Celtics with horrible, truly horrible coaching) to upgrade in off-season...wasted lottery pick and let a few key bench players go...
What does artificial mean in this case? Curry,Thompson, and Green were all drafted. That's the core of the Warriors championship team before Durant even got there. Lots of teams had the chance to draft Curry, Thompson, and Green.
Star players have always had power. Wilt Chamberlin forced his way to the Lakers in the early '70s. Kareem did the same thing later in the decade.
The bigger shift, to me, is players willingly taking less (sometimes a lot less) money in order to stack the roster deck within the salary cap. The salary cap really only works if each player is paid their market value - you are allowed to obtain X dollars worth of talent. But when players are willing to forego salary to play together on a super team, then you're getting much more talent for your X dollars than another team is getting for the same money, which really is a "within the rules" subversion of the concept of a salary cap.
Didn't Tom Brady do this one season so that the Patriots could sign a couple of key free agents?
Yes, and with similar results. Brady's contract has allowed NE to close other positional gaps and made them more competitive than they would be if he was paid his true value. And his lower-than-value salary is relatively recent, starting in 2013 - three years after James/Wade/Bosh took discounted salaries with the Heat in 2010.
The NFL is also structured differently, carrying many more roster players and a much higher salary cap - so a single player (or even 2 or 3) taking reductions isn't going to make as big a difference as it does in the NBA.
The practice of players taking less money than their value to form superteams leads to imbalance, and the salary cap has no provision to counter it. It is designed around player behavior following solely financial incentives - if they start foregoing compensation to follow other incentives (i.e. rings), it really isn't going to do much except collect more hardware for a few superstars and more money for the owners who get much higher value while paying less salary.
Cousins is hurt and will miss much, maybe most of the season. And it is risky, since he has not been a good teammate. Plus he will have to get used to coming off the bench, and he is not that kind of guy. That move could backfire on them, the same way trading for Isaiah Thomas backfired on Cleveland.
Will Rondo start for the Lakers? If you are making a purely basketball decision, he should. Which won't sit too well with Lavar, who has already seen his two younger kids snubbed by the NBA, and has to be wary of Lonzo being traded away. His pipe dream of having three Balls in the Laker starting lineup is not going to happen. Now he has to worry about Lonzo being in a trade to get Leonard.
TL
Will Rondo start for the Lakers? If you are making a purely basketball decision, he should. Which won't sit too well with Lavar, who has already seen his two younger kids snubbed by the NBA, and has to be wary of Lonzo being traded away. His pipe dream of having three Balls in the Laker starting lineup is not going to happen. Now he has to worry about Lonzo being in a trade to get Leonard.
TL
No risk for the Warriors. Cousins was a steal at one-year, $5.3 million. There is nothing to lose.
Hoping the Durant to the Knicks rumor for next year have some validity. The NBA needs to institute a negotiating window before FA's can actually sign (similar to hockey) that will curtail the rampant tampering that goes on without any league repercussions.
Wilson Chandler is a nice pickup-----he can play.
Getting Reddick to stay while taking a 10 million dollar hit was IMO the best thing that could have happened to them.
and KD took 5 million less than he could have, so its basically not costing the Warriors a dime.
