Lakers 2024-25: Does Luka tip the scales enough to make LA heavy favorites?
- Thread starter snowmanny
- Start date
Yeah but that wasn’t like this. Is it coincidence that the media began questioning if LeBron would request a trade 2-3 days before he leaves the team? I’ve got this 96% that Paul leaked this and that LeBron has played his last game as a Laker.
So, Butler to LAL, LeBron and Bronny to Miami, Detroit gets a second rounder to take a small contract into space to facilitate the deal, right?
Yup. The media didn’t all coincidentally begin talking about a LeBron trade together. I don’t see a scenario where LeBron leaves his team in the middle of the season…..without leaving his team. Unless it’s a Diddy thing that is about to be exposed (that’s the other 4%).
There are plenty of reasons that LeBron could be away from the team (illness or death in the family being a likely scenario).
A Diddy thing? Fucking garbage post.
Bronny played for the South Bay Lakers on 12/12 and 12/13. It is unlikely that a death or emergency in the family that would keep LeBron from playing would not have the same effect on Bronny.
1. No there aren’t. Nobody in his family died, nobody is sick. You don’t find the timing of the reports interesting?
2. The Diddy thing was a mock on idiots who associate him with that.
96% seems high but I'm with you that this is "something".
The entire thing is very weird and it's clear now this not a standard break, injury, load management, etc.
He could be in standby mode right now, which is concerning if he lands in a place that unlocks him. Lakers are a tire fire. He probably has more in the tank that we're seeing.
It’s possible, though this foot injury seems legit and he’s really been unable to defend all season long. I’d prefer he not be the 7th guy off the bench or something, but if someone’s giving up a good rotational guy or starter for him, I’d be fine with that.
LBJ got his coach in LA, they have AD…I don’t buy his horrible play is all lack of effort. At least not right out of the gates.
We saw him be elite in summer Olympics so I don’t think he suddenly sucks.
Of course, a serious injury would change that
Of course, a serious injury would change that
Stick him on an all star team against mediocre competition and have him play 24 mpg with 1-2 days off after every game and no travel and I imagine he could look elite for another ten years. Unless his minutes are drastically reduced, I don't see him being a consistent all around all star anymore. It's tempting to say he'd be an improvement over strus or whomever plays the 3 for Cleveland, but he's not a small forward anymore, he's a big who goes through long stretches of immobility. Put him on the floor instead of Allen or Mobley and their defense crumbles.
Bron doesn't suck, but his 41% from 3 was a complete outlier last season. He's dinged up & more importantly, he doesn't want to expend energy on D during the regular season (esp pre-ASB). He probably figured AD + others would pick up the slack around him. BUT AD has also taken it down a notch. Opposing teams run at every chance they get against the LAL, everyone in the NBA knows they lack defensive effort/ability across the roster.
The Olympics mean next to nothing. Bron didn't play much defense for more than a quarter or two this summer (when Bogdanovic scared them straight). Taking open jumpers with KD, Steph, Booker or driving hard (with a friendly whistle) against Euro League players was a fun exhibition.
The Olympics mean next to nothing. Bron didn't play much defense for more than a quarter or two this summer (when Bogdanovic scared them straight). Taking open jumpers with KD, Steph, Booker or driving hard (with a friendly whistle) against Euro League players was a fun exhibition.
Didn’t he just gave a bunch of triple/doubles in row a few weeks ago? The last game he played he put up something like a 39/14/11 line…..gimme that kinda suck lol.
I'd be fine with one of the other contenders trading real value for him, sure. He's not that guy anymore, at least not consistently. I was imagining him as an incremental piece to an already good team. Of course with his price tag that's more or less impossible, so my bad.
It’s not the end-all-be-all stat, but he’s -129 on the season on a .500 team. His defense is atrocious right now. He’s barely trying on that end, you can see it watching their games.
I’ll say it’s less than end-all-be-all and that it’s a pretty much worthless stat but that’s for another conversation. Have you seen the Lakers these past two games without LeBron? If not for D’Angelo Russell going 4Q nuclear they probably don’t put up 100 against one of the worst defenses in Portland then put up 87 against Minnesota.
Criticizing LeBron for taking some defensive plays off when he’s the entire offense at age 40 seems kinda silly to me when they are barely an NBA team without him in the lineup (which is MUCH different than plus-minus)
I think him winding up on Golden State is more likely than Cleveland. The Warriors could trade their 25 and 27 firsts (with limited protections) and send Wiggins to LA along with an assortment of contracts for LBJ.
I don't see that ending well for the Warriors, but I think they feel they owe it to Steph to give him the best team possible for the remainder of his contract (which expires after the 26-27 season).
I don't see that ending well for the Warriors, but I think they feel they owe it to Steph to give him the best team possible for the remainder of his contract (which expires after the 26-27 season).
Tough to imagine an eight game stretch where LeBron has a -30, -28, -25, -21, and a -12 in five of the six losses. LBJ has been minus 20 or more in five of 23 games this season. He did it only five times in 71 games last season, and none the year before.
Say what you will about plus/minus, but a player of LeBron’s stature should not get destroyed when he’s on the floor like we have seen lately. He’s either injured, has check out on the team (he and his agency created), or at the start of a rapid decline. Regardless, walking away from his team’s dumpster fire isn’t a good look, unless it’s so he doesn’t get injured before a pending trade, which really isn’t a good look either, since he and his people built the dumpster.
Say what you will about plus/minus, but a player of LeBron’s stature should not get destroyed when he’s on the floor like we have seen lately. He’s either injured, has check out on the team (he and his agency created), or at the start of a rapid decline. Regardless, walking away from his team’s dumpster fire isn’t a good look, unless it’s so he doesn’t get injured before a pending trade, which really isn’t a good look either, since he and his people built the dumpster.
I don’t know how much of a factor LeBron was in Tyler Herro’s historic 7 three-pointers in that 5-min 3Q stretch in Miami or the 6-27 that his teammates shot from 3 in Minnesota the night before, or his teammates matching their 6 for 27 against Phoenix prior to that but placing this blame on one singular player is a large part of what +/- calculates. Whenever LeBron hasn’t carried the Lakers this year, especially on the road, they tend to get run out of the building. This doesn’t seem like a LeBron problem as we’ve also seen in the two games without him.
This feels like a "why not both?" situation. LeBron's defense is so bad that he is not currently a winning player AND the rest of the roster is so bad (at least without AD going off) that the team is better with him than without him.
Atlanta really made out like bandits when the Murray trade sequence is all said and done, if the Lakers end up in seemingly-likely freefall this year.
They end up giving up
- a probably mediocre 2025 pick
- a probably mediocre 2026 swap
- a probably mediocre 2027 pick
and getting
- Dyson Daniels (a #8 pick who's now living up to that during his first contract)
- a potentially insanely valuable 2025 pick
- a 2027 pick that might well be better than the one they send out (worse of Milwaukee and New Orleans)
The original Murray trade was meh/bad, but it's better to be lucky than good.
They end up giving up
- a probably mediocre 2025 pick
- a probably mediocre 2026 swap
- a probably mediocre 2027 pick
and getting
- Dyson Daniels (a #8 pick who's now living up to that during his first contract)
- a potentially insanely valuable 2025 pick
- a 2027 pick that might well be better than the one they send out (worse of Milwaukee and New Orleans)
The original Murray trade was meh/bad, but it's better to be lucky than good.
How are they getting a potentially insanely valuable 2025 pick? Lakers currently have a better record than the Hawks and sure, there might be a Lebron trade but if AD is still in LA, and LA doesn't have their own pick, they have no reason to tank.
I think that was "if they win the lottery" value if LAL misses the playoffs, but I could be wrong.
The West is very deep, and the Lakers already have a badly negative point differential even with LeBron playing. There are a lot of ways for LA to end up in the deep lottery this year, regardless of whether they want to tank.
As badly as the Lakers are run, I'd still think that they're holding out for something better than Andrew Wiggins and flotsam and a couple of meh picks (the first one would definitely be meh).
Lebron says weeklong absence was due to a sore foot.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/42993504/lakers-lebron-james-try-give-go-vs-grizzlies
That doesn't quite add up with Redick saying he didn't know why James was away.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/42993504/lakers-lebron-james-try-give-go-vs-grizzlies
That doesn't quite add up with Redick saying he didn't know why James was away.
It could get real UGLY for the Lakers if either Bron or AD goes down, the other will let go of the rope.
The WC will feast on the rest of that roster.
Even with LeBron and AD, they are overperforming what you'd expect. Historically, in the NBA (most sports tbh), it's smart to fade teams that have slightly winning records with awful point differential early in the season.
Has there ever been a second unit with a top-two this good being so bad or playing so bad? After the Top-4 (Reaves and Hackimura doing what they do) and an occasional bright spot in Kneacht it is an abomination with Russell making mental/lazy errors on a regular basis while only recently getting his 3-pt over 30%. Vincent is not the same playing since his two knee surgeries, Christie is awful, Reddish is awful and Jaxson Hayes is completely clueless out there.
When LeBron/AD are engaged, at home, they can compete and beat anyone. When one of them isn’t they fall apart…..especially on the road. It is truly a unique team and one I don’t recall ever seeing anything close to it.
And it's very hard to stay engaged all the time, physio-mentally speaking. LeBron and AD probably would be kicking the RPMs pretty far into red to do that consistently.
As you say, it's so weird that the roster is so top-heavy: usually when a team gets multiple years of team-building, they have draft picks come available to trade, find a couple guys who break out, and get things solid.
For LA, the Westbrook trade was 4 years ago. It shouldn't still be killing them to this degree. They now have multiple picks to trade. I think the issue is that they're just being really stingy with those picks, because LeBron is old.
Everyone in the league would LOVE 2029 and 2031 unprotected Lakers picks (heck, they could probably get good value by selling off the 1-4 they own in their 2027 pick, or the 2028 and 2030 swaps). They're almost too valuable: ideally they would break them apart into multiple 1sts they could start dealing for roleplayers to fill in around LeBron and AD, but the front office just hasn't been super creative or competent since the 2020 title.
Never fear, it's Markelle Fultz to the rescue!
Although I have to say that trading DLo and Vincent for someone playable and then signing Fultz is an upgrade over what they have there. However, the former will take draft equity and LAL doesn't seem to want to do that.
After seeing way too much of Fultz last year I made the statement that this would be his final year in the NBA. He was Gabe Vincent-levels bad all season complete with the IDGAS attitude during his 6-7 min rotation. He wasn’t in shape, he stopped even pretending to be a 3-pt threat oftentimes messing up ball movement by positioning himself inside the line on ball rotation or catching and dribbling into traffic prior to taking a middie.
Every now and then I check in on Bronny. He's played all of 22 minutes in 9 NBA games (1-9 from the field), so it's not fair to take anything from that (other than to note that he is certainly shooting his shot during his brief minutes, averaging more FGAs/100 than Payton Pritchard). He's still played just 7 G league games, jacking up plenty of shots (3rd on his team in FGAs) and missing most of them (18th in FG%, 16th in 3P%). I don't know if he's been injured or what, but he's played in fewer than half of their G league games.
This reminded me of my bet (which I'm not sure @HomeRunBaker ever accepted). With 9 games played out of 36, Bronny is on a pace for 20.5 appearances. Apparently we set a perfect line!