The Official Los Angeles Lakers Thread

[Lou]

38 minutes ago, hangin n wangin said:

Kawhi Leonard has already stated he doesn't want to play with Lebron

he did? 

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 minute ago, Lou said:

not if you move them for Anthony Davis 

Maybe. We might have backed ourselves into the corner where that is that only way forward.

[Lou]

1 minute ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Maybe. We might have backed ourselves into the corner where that is that only way forward.

if we've backed ourselves into a corner it's because those young players, as a core, haven't produced 

[hangin n wangin]

11 minutes ago, Lou said:

he did? 

https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/kawhi-leonard-not-interested-in-playing-with-lebron-james-report-news.74155.html

Take it for what it's worth...obviously anything could happen, but I would say it's a pretty low percentage he joins Lebron.

[AngelsLakersFan]

5 minutes ago, Lou said:

if we've backed ourselves into a corner it's because those young players, as a core, haven't produced 

I tend to agree with that. I'm more of a 'build around what you have' guy than a 'trade everybody and sign a free agent' guy so I don't like the strategy, even if I agree that moving forward it might be the way to go. 

[Lou]

7 minutes ago, hangin n wangin said:

https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/kawhi-leonard-not-interested-in-playing-with-lebron-james-report-news.74155.html

Take it for what it's worth...obviously anything could happen, but I would say it's a pretty low percentage he joins Lebron.

meh, I thought you meant an actually statement from Leonard, not a 3rd-hand account. 

[hangin n wangin]

59 minutes ago, Lou said:

not if you move them for Anthony Davis 

That's the only way it will be worth it. But problem with it is, Lebron most likely won't have any patience to wait until Davis is a free agent (couldn't even last one year), and we will probably have to give up the whole young core and our first round pick this year to get him. I don't like that idea when we can get him in free agency with out giving up our assets. If Davis really wants to play with Lebron then he will sign as a free agent. And what if we do trade for Davis and he leaves in free agency just to go to the Celtics or whatever team a year later (ala Dwight Howard)? And who knows how the trade scenarios will work out now with Brandon Ingram having his blood clot. The age and time line of Lebron just does not work with this team.

[Angel Oracle]

No real improvement this season = yeah, real great, signing that LBJ!

[Lou]

yeah, the guy averaging 27/9/8 is the problem. 

and trading for Simmons was a bad deal for the Angels. 

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/lakers-coaching-staff-pleaded-with-magic-johnson-to-re-sign-brook-lopez-and-julius-randle-per-report/ 

Maybe the above isn't true but a lot of moves made under Magic's tenure as GM have been questionable.  Great players don't always turn out to be great or even average coaches/GM's/owners.  

[hangin n wangin]

1 hour ago, Lou said:

yeah, the guy averaging 27/9/8 is the problem. 

and trading for Simmons was a bad deal for the Angels. 

I would consider the type of players that LBJ chose to have around him this year as a problem (Rondo, Stevenson, McGee, Chandler). These are players that are not pure shooters and that is the route that LBJ chose to go with this year. 

His defense is also a huge problem. He's getting blasted out there nightly. It's one thing if he makes an effort and gets embarrassed by a great offensive player (as would happen to kobe sometimes in his final two seasons), but LBJ just stares at guys and lets them shoot or gives them the lane to the basket. That can't be tolerated on any team. He's also been pretty abysmal off the ball where he mostly just goes to one spot and stands or shuffles around that spot until he gets the ball. 

Lebron is putting up numbers and if someone doesn't watch or pay attention they might think "LBJ is just the same as always", but those aren't meaningful numbers because they don't really impact the game. They're mostly stat padding and if he didn't get those numbers a large amount of that output would just be more evenly distributed among his teammates, meaning that you could take him out of the lineup and it wouldn't actually make too much of a difference right now. The numbers/production are kind of incidental almost, as in they are going to occur for the team and he's just the one getting those numbers. Further evidence for this idea comes from the fact that we're no different since LBJ came back than we were without him.

So I would say he's definitely a problem and a big reason things have gone the way they have this year. But no, he's not the only problem.

[hangin n wangin]

Lol. I'm sorry but when you are a leader of a team, and you do shit like this, you have to be held accountable.

[Lou]

meh, calling out an nba star for not playing defense is hilarious 

[hangin n wangin]

17 hours ago, Lou said:

meh, calling out an nba star for not playing defense is hilarious 

[hangin n wangin]

I’m losing trust in Magic. I thought he was doing great before the Lebron signing. I thought he was hitting on every trade and draft pick. I did question somewhat the JC/LNJ trade but I understood the importance of having cap space. Plus we picked up a 1st in the process. That was an asset that we could use in the future and Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance are not huge game changers. Everything was moving in the right direction. We were progressing as a young team and we were supposed to sign PG13. Everyone knew PG wanted to come here.

Then all of a sudden Magic turned into an impatient little shit and couldn't help himself when LBJ came calling. He blew his load for the shiny toy and nothing shines brighter in the NBA then LBJ. Looks a lot like he ditched his plan and now is catering to everything Lebron wants.

He didn't give a shit about all the warning signs. He just had to have his shiny toy. Lebron had warning signs all over the friggin place. Magic ignored those signs and is too stubborn to turn back now. Not only is Lebron on the back end of his career, but it literally just came out before we signed him that Kyrie didn’t want to play with him. Then all of a sudden PG13 wants nothing to do with us. Coincidence? Please...

Then Magic sucks Lebrons cock and tries to trade the whole damn team, plus our future draft picks for a single player. Coincidence? Please....Then he makes 2 questionable trades where he gives away young players that have shown promise and a draft pick for a couple of journeymen that haven't moved the win/loss needle whatsoever. That Zubac trade was complete ass dick.

Even after all of this I'm giving him one last chance to turn this thing around. But if we strike out in free agency this year, he will have left us in worse shape than we were before. He needs to sign a star in free agency because that's why he traded away our young players for cap space to sign free agents. Trading for a star player is not enough because he should've just done that with our already traded young players.

[hangin n wangin]

Lebron said to Kawhi right in front of a camera “we will be in touch”. LMFAO... same shit Harper did with Trout....

[Lou]

your hate of LeBron has reached a disturbing level 

[Angel Oracle]

Trying to stay neutral, but the proof is in the still the same results (35-47 record the year before, under .500 now).

[hangin n wangin]

5 hours ago, Lou said:

your hate of LeBron has reached a disturbing level 

Your love of Lebron has reached a disturbing level. You act like I’m the only Laker fan that feels this way. The majority want him the hell out.

Jeanie Buss even thought about trading his ass.

 

[Stradling]

Blaming Lebron is like blaming Scioscia, it’s fucking stupid.  I truly don’t understand the lack of personal accountability that exists with fans as it relates to players performance.   It’s always the bad guys fault.  Fuck that.   It’s not Lebron fault these guys stopped performing after the trade rumors came out.  It’s the players fault. If you wanna blame Magic don’t blame him for Lebron, blame him for Stephenson, McGee and Rondo.  He built a team that has no shooters and limited defense.  He built a team much different than any team Lebron has had success with. Why the hell would you ever build a team with 3-4 ball handlers when you have Lebron?  

[hangin n wangin]

You simply fail to understand that lebron had an influence in those players that were brought in. He chose to go that route. That’s something you just seem to find so hard to believe for whatever reason.

lets see what happens this offseason. Hopefully it goes well. Year one of this experiment was a catastrophe and Lebron played a part in the reason why.

[hangin n wangin]

41 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Blaming Lebron is like blaming Scioscia, it’s Facking stupid.  I truly don’t understand the lack of personal accountability that exists with fans as it relates to players performance.   It’s always the bad guys fault.  F*ck that.   It’s not Lebron fault these guys stopped performing after the trade rumors came out.  It’s the players fault. If you wanna blame Magic don’t blame him for Lebron, blame him for Stephenson, McGee and Rondo.  He built a team that has no shooters and limited defense.  He built a team much different than any team Lebron has had success with. Why the hell would you ever build a team with 3-4 ball handlers when you have Lebron?  

You would find a way to make this about Scioscia.

[Lou]

2 hours ago, hangin n wangin said:

Your love of Lebron has reached a disturbing level. You act like I’m the only Laker fan that feels this way. The majority want him the hell out.

Jeanie Buss even thought about trading his ass.

 

I don't love him. I just think it's ridiculous to blame him for the team's failures.

and lol @ Jeannie Buss. 

also, how do you know a majority of fans want him out? nobody I know feels that way. 

[HaloMilliVanilli]

This season HAS been a disaster.  However, the primary reason for that is injuries.  If we hadn't missed 18 games from Lebron, 16 from Ingram, 21 from Lonzo, 34 from Rondo, and then 6-8 from Kuzma and McGee, I think the results would be different.  Sure, the front office made mistakes last summer signing the guys they did.  I only have issues with Lance and Beasley.  I would've preferred keeping Brook Lopez and Julius Randle, and maybe adding Rondo or someone cheaper at the backup point.  But, hindsight is always 20/20 and I don't know what players wanted to sign smaller, one-year deals with us.

Ultimately, as Lou said I don't know anyone who wants Lebron gone.  Is he perfect?  Nope.  Just gimme better health from the young guys, add some help in FA and the draft and see what happens.  As far as this season goes, I don't feel it's a stretch to think there might be a 10 win difference if we have somewhat better health.  That helps cohesiveness and depth on the floor and likely has us in the 40-28 area fighting for anywhere from 3rd-8th seeding in the playoffs.

[hangin n wangin]

I’m going by what I read on Reddit Laker forums and Laker nation forums over a few die hard angel fans who post in the laker side forum here sometimes.