I think the Bulls and Suns are rumored to be the highest on Ball. Suns are #6 and the Bulls are #7 in this week's draft. Would either give their pick for Ball? If so, Griffin is GM of the year.
I agree. But apparently they don't have League Pass in Chicago or Phoenix, because they still see something in him. Those GMs are probably seeing him the next Russell, a dude that blows up after he's free from the shadow of LeBron. They are f**king insane of course to think that.
I don't think the Pelicans can easily trade anything involved because the trade doesn't go through until the new league year.
What are the details on trading what they will acquire from the Lakers? I'm assuming any player can be traded immediately if it's just that player going out (from New Orleans). If it's more than one player going out, they have to wait 60 days. Is there something else?
Apparently the trade doesn't officially go through until the 1st day of the new league year, July 6th. I guess any other moves with those players could be renegotiated into a multi team trade but it gets pretty crazy to do that.
Huge in sense of assets they get. It’s madness that people are saying the deal is bad because they didn’t get anyone close to AD quality. Nobody bar Giannis is close to AD value. If someone says Pelicans are fools for not getting equal value back then they are basically fools for not swapping him for Giannis. To get three good young players, two of them with potential to be very good/great, a high pick in the draft and 5-year control over someone else’s picks is a huge haul. This board is way too blinded with Lakers hate to be able to recognize the value of the assets that were given here. Ingram is a very good player. Ball is a good prospect. Hart is a good rotation player. All those picks are very valuable. I don’t see how Lakers picks in 2022-25 don’t end up being good to be honest, seeing as they will be in cap hell for a while and LeBron will be gone. I don’t think Lakers got a good deal here at all. They got a great player but the price they paid is basically their entire future. They are left with zero flexibility in trades until at least 2023. If James and Davis doesn’t work out they are in hell. Next year they could have got him for free. Issue is LeBron wouldn’t want to wait.
The reverse protection on that 2021 pick is great. 2022 will likely be the first double draft, meaning that even if it ends up being like no. 15, it's still a good pick. The way I see it: Davis is a top 5 player in the league, at the peak of his career but with just a year left on his contract and no desire to stay which should reduce his value, It however didn't. As for assets Pelicans got back the way I see it: Lonzo is a talented playmaker and excellent defender with clear shooting deficiencies. If he learns to shoot, he will 100% be a top 10 point guard in the league at some point. If he doesn't, he's still a pretty useful player who is probably worth a top 5-7 pick. Ingram is a super talented scorer, he has had shooting issues last year but also showed good playmaking and defense. He will at least be a very good NBA wing, the risk of being a complete bust is not there anymore. His floor is basically a good forward. He's easily worth a top 5-7 pick in the draft as well Hart is what he is, no superstar potential but a good wing off the bench. No. 4 pick in this draft is not equal to a no. 4 pick last year or the year before but it's still a good asset, with plenty of promising player to choose from. That can also be flipped for a lower pick and future assets. That 2021 pick with reverse protection is an excellent asset. I don't think Lakers post LeBron will be that good, meaning 2023 swap rights is a valuable asset, maybe not great but good. 2024 unprotected which they can either decide to take or defer to 2025 is excellent. By that time they will be in rebuild again so I'll be surprised if it's not a lottery pick by then. Pelicans get the chance to build for the duration of 7 years they will have Zion, basically. They can cut & chop how many times they like, they can flip assets for other assets and build many iterations of the team with these assets. That's why it's super baffling why people do not rate this deal, it's much better than getting someone like CJ or even Beal who basically give them one avenue for success, and little flexibility. That's what they did with AD, tried to win immediately while not having much flexibility. I bet they wish they kept Hield. They've learned from their mistakes and have given themselves a huge window for success, and multiple shots at it. The obsession with current quality and winning now is strange, Pelicans will not be trying to win now. They will want to be decent now (which they should be with this team) and have flexibility going forward (which they now have a ton of). Nobody was ever going to offer them a better deal. Do not delude yourselves into thinkin CJ and Collins would have been better than this, or that Knicks/Celtics were going to offer them anything close to this. Yes, if Ainge offered 5 unprotected firsts, all their picks this year plus Smart, Brown and Tatum, it would have been a better/equal deal but he was NEVER going to get anywhere near that. Waiting would have done nothing for Pels because this offer was not getting beaten, not in a week, not in five weeks, not in a million years. Is there a chance that all these assets will be shit, and all 7-8 players they get (Ball, Ingram, Hart + 4th pick this year, + 3 players in the future) are going to be terrible? Yes, but I wouldn't say it's a great one. I think at least 2-3 players they get out of it will be very good, and I won't be surprised if the number is 5-6. I already expect Ingram to be very good at worst, and Lonzo and Hart to be good because I've seen what they can do. Picks don't always work out but they have value. Pelicans have a ton of opportunities now. But yeah, CJ straight up. That's the deal to take here. Or Josh Richardson + a bunch of 2023-25 picks.
The Lakers bought themselves a shot at a title for the next 2 or so years, and then they are pretty much fucked. They have no assets to trade and little salary to use to sign the team. If either LeBron or AD get injured, well, you're looking at best at the 7th or 8th seed, and without a draft pick there's no incentive to tank. And even with that title shot, what evidence do we have they have any capability to add the right pieces around LeBron/AD? Last year was a clown car of a team. It's going to take a genius to find quality role players that they can afford, not just this year but year after year, and I'm not convinced the Lakers management is good at doing anything except signing superstars who want to come anyway. LeBron and the Lakers management got what they wanted. LeBron jetisons youth and gets a shot at a ring this coming year. The Lakers "brain trust" gets to enjoy the fruits of the trade. When it all turns to utter horse shit in 3 or so years, well, all those guys will be gone. But eh, if they do get a championship it'll all be worth it. Meanwhile, I'm very, very jealous of the Pelicans' future. To have so many assets to build with around a guy like Zion.
Given the new lottery odds, NO could very well land multiple HIGH draft picks if LA gets some bad luck with injury. This is the largest future draft pick haul since I can remember.
Man, you aren't kidding. So much of the Lakers' fortunes rely on the health of a guy who has only played 74+ games twice in seven seasons (AD), and a 35 year old who already owns the all-time NBA record for playoff minutes played and is 15 in regular season minutes played. LeBron is like a Honda with 200k miles on it. It's a Honda, so it's probably going to be ok, but man, do you really want to take it on a cross country? Oh, also the Lakers' management, despite all evidence to the contrary, need to suddenly gain the ability to identify compatible and effective cheap talent. lol. It could definitely work, but man it's a risky proposition for LA. And if things go absolutely perfectly for LA, it's still a pretty darned good haul for the Pels.
Don’t even need bad luck with injuries I think. They will have Davis, Kuzma and almost zero serious picks between now and 2025. If they sign players on 3-4 year deals this year, they will be players like Beverley etc. who will also be in decline in 2-3 years and they will have no means to replace them. LeBron will be gone for all their seasons when those picks could materialize bar 2020-21, and they only get 2021 pick if it’s top 8. In 2022 they could realistically be where they were in 2014, a complete rebuild. They got like three consecutive #2s. They will basically become worse version of recent Pelicans, just Davis and a bunch of fillers. And if AD goes down they could become awful. They have almost no ways to build a long term contender there. The window to win is the next two seasons, and Pelicans don’t even take picks that are based on the next couple of seasons (unless it’s top 8 in 2021 which is a protection they wanted in case LeBron or AD can’t play full season and they are awful).
Imagine if they screw up this summer and AD has had enough of Rich Paul. If he decides to bounce next summer, LAL is completely screwed.
Posted this in the other thread but it really belongs here: LOL at all the Rich Paul haters... Most of you have probably NEVER spoke up or said much negative about agents until him. He is doing nothing that hasn't been done before except being more public about it. He's just young and black while doing it. Being young, black, and outspoken causes public ire. Lots are mad just because got into being an agent by having a strong work ethic and a good relationship with Lebron. Athletes for the most part cannot control their destinies. Play where you're drafted, play where you're traded to. People are hating because players are exhibiting a level of control on where they get to play. I have some glasses for y'all: Cases in point: Kobe demanded a trade from the Lakers. Any talk about his agent? Shaq demanded a trade FROM LA to MIA. I don't even know his agent's name off top... Kyrie Irving demanded a trade and people talked MAD SHIT about HIM and how stupid his decision was. Nothing about his agent who he just fired... What about when Jimmy Butler demanded a trade? Folks were CLAMORING for us to get him... Not one word about his agent... Paul George's trade demand was a "gut punch" in Kevin Prichard's words. "Paul George delivered "gut punch" to Pacers was the headline, NOT his agents. No mention of his agent in here either... No one was really talking about Kawhi's agent when his infamous trade request was demanded. Nope. Only talking shit about Kawhi who made a GOOD CHOICE... Le'Veon Bell sat out a whole NFL season (more than likely at the behest of his agent). Crickets about his agent. I could go on but why: Here's a list of very famous NBA players who demanded trades. NO TALK about Agents. Chris Paul is now demanding a trade out of HOU. Is anyone gonna complain about his Agent?? Hell the fuck no. People in here WANT to see that breakup... The selective outrage about Rich Paul is just that...
My personal feeling is that it's more about how public he's been about it, then his skin color. I've said what I think in that other thread, maybe skin color has something to do with it, but in my opinion because things around him seem to leak all over the place a lot of his and Lebron's business have been really public, when things are public, when people are public they open themselves up to the public eye of being "hated on". The reason why other agents don't get crapped on, while their players do, is because the players are the public figures, not the agent (for the most part), there are a few white agents who are semi-vocal and they get hated on too. In a way, taking the heat is part of what an agent should be doing for his player, so the fact he puts himself out there and takes the heat instead of his players, (AD and Lebron) in this case, it kind of shows that he's doing what they're paying him to do. I understand your point about young and black, but what public figure doesn't get hated on, white, black, brown, whatever. I can't think of a single public figure that comes away from the online world unscathed.
Unscathed isn't the adjective I'd apply to this situation. People always find a way to be negative and no one in the world is unscathed. He is receiving undue HATE. And, it's happening in this very forum over a guy we had NO CHANCE of getting. Now people are actively saying we shouldn't try and go get Bazely over this. It's more than just silly...
I don't recall if those players agents were extremely vocal about what team they wanted their client to go to and also verbally told teams he will not re-sign if you trade for him. I also don't understand why the issue of color was brought into it. If Rich Paul was white I'm sure the feelings would be the same.
