This shit from LA writers makes me want to fucking vomit. http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/lakers/post/_/id/32364/rapid-reaction-lakers-land-dwight-howard
wouldn't that show they don't have the balls to do it, then? Clearly, they don't have the balls to risk a guy walking. Otherwise, there owuld be one, no?
Why do ppl continue to think that Mitch keeps getting lucky or is capable of pulling off deals. Any of us could be laker gm and dh would be on the la roster tonight. The league wants la relevant...it is business...this is 100 percent league office manipulation. Nba fans continue to be suckers buying the hype and calling it mystery. How many more freaking examples do some of you need? I don't know how it could it be more obvious?
...precisely, I'd love to read a compelling argument why any one of the Nets 5,000 offers were not as good as this one? Unbeknownst to the rest of us, Orlando must be pulling a Romney/Federal Reserve by getting a shit load of cash funneled to an off-shore account for accepted such a terrible trade. How else can they justify this?! Really, they replaced Dwight Fucking Howard with Nikola Vucevic...really?! And 3 "protected" first round picks from teams outside of the lottery, really?...whoopdy fucking doo!
The Magic continue to be a farm team for the Lakers. Unbelievable. So where does Kevin Durant end up at the end of this contract?
The stench of commercialism coming from this trade is seriously bumming my excitement going forward. . .yet we all knew this was coming - Fuck the Lakers and their 'tail(Lakers) wagging the dog(NBA)' ways
Lakers will always reload no matter what, even when Kobe retires, they'll find a way. Still don't understand how the Magic waited for this offer, rather than the Nets' reported offer.
The writing was on the wall back in the early 2000s when the Nets/Spurs Finals were some of the lowest viewed in the history of the league. I think the league realized that they needed an LA, Miami, or NY with the stars to go with it. They needed a Durant/LeBron matchup to pull big numbers. We're screwed. We should seriously just pack it up
History keeps repeating. When the Lakers got Jabbar, a Seattle letter to the editor that I read despaired, "The Lakers are SO lucky..." And before that they stole Chamberlain from Philadelphia. Stars will accept trades to Los Angeles, when they wouldn't to smaller markets lacking Hollywood glitz. This won't be the last time the Lakers get an undeserved star. It will continue as long as this league lasts.
Yeah, this is just history repeating itself. This is nothing new for the Lakers. The most egregious example of the Lakers "star stealing" was the Pau Gasol trade. I know his play has fallen off recently, but when the Lakers got him, he was arguably the best four in the league. Essentially, the Grizzlies were cash strapped at the time, and with the whole Jerry West connection, Grizz management just so happened to cash dump the only All-Star in franchise history to the Lakers, with the only compensation being Kwame Brown's expiring contract. Nowadays, people point out that the Grizzlies got Marc Gasol in that exchange, but as someone who grew up in Memphis playing basketball, Marc Gasol was a joke at that time. His physical transformation was really unforseen. Back in the day, you could just run up and down the court a few times and tire him out. His inclusion was merely a formality and a throw-in for the Gasol family that had multiple residences in Memphis at the time and didn't want to uproot. Imagine it being akin to the Blazers randomly trading LaMarcus Aldridge for Tiago Splitter and the rights to some prospects. It made no sense at the time and ultimately just handed the Lakers two rings.
This isn't a big shocker. When have the Lakers not had a great player? For a quick minute in the mid-90's? The Lakers get ratings, superstars generate better ratings. Lakers being relevant = NBA thriving.
Who cares? The Lakers fans SHOULD be gleeful. I wish to hell I that I had a team like the Lakers to root for. Laker fans can rest assured that top players will always want to come to LA, while Portland fans can rest assured that their team will always get passed over. How many times does it have to happen before we realize the trend???
100% correct. That's what makes this whole thing so horribly, horribly unfair for fans like us. For the first time in my life (and a very long career as a Blazer fan), I'm seriously thinking of saying goodbye to the NBA. I probably won't, because my Blazer loyalty is so deeply ingrained, but I honestly don't see this team ever winning a championship again. Lillard will put in a few years here, become an All-Star, and then flee to the Lakers or the Heat or the Knicks to get his title. Teams like Portland will, as one other poster put it, just be farm teams for the big market teams.
Yeh, I'm a little confused (and I see Hollinger has something on Insider about "headscratcher"). Why did Orlando previously (in July) turn down four unprotected first rounders plus Brook Lopez and now they take three protected picks plus Aaron Affalo?
As someone said on Twitter: "Just heard that Orlando received the draft rights to Marc Gasol in the trade. It all makes sense now." What is particularly stunning about this is how monumentally shitty this trade was for Orlando. And shittier than other trades they were actually offered. Where is Daryl Morey? Everything he did this offseason was dedicated to landing Howard - why'd he crap out at the finish? He could've offered better, surely. Wasn't even the Nets' offer better than this? I'm clinging to the hope that Howard's back-surgery has affected him much worse than we know. Petty? Small-minded? Guilty as charged. I sort of want to hope that Howard bails on the Lakers because they're all geriatric apart from him, but he's got to know that they can reload any time they want. And he's such an addle-headed halfwit that they can probably dupe him into an extension no problem.
Chris, I also have a memory. I remember when the Lakers added Gary Payton and Karl Malone to a team with Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and a damn good supporting cast and they had their names written on the championship trophy before the preseason began. Remember? A funny thing happened on the way to the coronation. They lost to scruffy scrappy star-less Detroit. I agree with Nik. Bryant and Nash are in the twilight of their careers, Howard has had injury issues and already said he won't sign an extension. They will be good, sure, ahd they'll be playing 8 on 5 as always, but I'm not ready to write off the entire season, let alone the next 5 years.
