Official NBA '17-18 Season Thread

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Woj and Shelburne posted an article like 2-3 days ago saying we were looking ahead to 2019 free agency, now all of a sudden, PG says he's happy in OKC but family comes first when it comes to free agency, AND we create a ton of cap room this summer.

Pelinka did some wonders this trade deadline. Two expiring deals and the Cavs 2018 first rounder for Clarkson and Nance (who we weren't gonna re-sign anyway), clearing up the necessary room for two max players this year and next? We can have up to $69m in space if we let Randle walk and stretch Deng, that's huge. The pick is top-3 protected so unless this Cavs season gets even worse and they manage to hit the jackpot again, we'll be keeping that pick (currently projected 25th). Trading Nance essentially means we're looking at Kuzma as our PF of the future.

Only one first round pick was traded today, and we got it. With all the other deals the Cavs were making, they could've easily shipped it elsewhere had we not struck early. Good stuff from Magic and Pelinka thus far, from saying no to the Kings (DeMarcus/Ingram), to DLo and Mozgov to the Nets, and now clearing up all that space. Also gotta give credit to LeGM for helping us clear cap room I guess, he's bringing PG with him confirmed.
 
Ingram at point guard is working so well. Being the primary ballhandler hasn't affected his shot at all, going 7-11 including 3-4 from 3 en route to 19 points. Dare I say our free throw woes are behind us, too.

Oh, and crazy to think that Paul George has played his last regular season game ever against the Lakers.
 
Holy fuck you Lakers fans are some kind of deluded

Enjoy watching us in the playoffs with your asses firmly planted on your couches
Its honestly quite sad how ecstatic some Lakers fans are just because they aren't last anymore.
The Lakers have been bad for too long, I was starting to miss how frustrated they made fans of every other team in the league.

I like the trade and I feel it'll work out. Fuck LeBron though, please keep his ass away from LA.
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
The Lakers have been bad for too long, I was starting to miss how frustrated they made fans of every other team in the league.

I like the trade and I feel it'll work out. Fuck LeBron though, please keep his ass away from LA.
4-5 seasons is literally nothing compared with other teams lol.
 
^ Yeah... also don't forget the Lakers have one of the best histories of any NBA team so we can't really act like they 'owe' the fans anything, and they seem to be trending upwards anyways. 4-5 years is definitely longer than you want but isn't bad when compared to other teams.

Just for reference, the Atlanta hawks from 1998-2007 had nine consecutive losing seasons. And that's the most recent stretch, our coaching is fine though and our roster is definitely not as bad as people want it to be so I don't think we'll have a fat ass stretch like that either
 
Cavs on a tear since the trade deadline, and IT looked nice in his Lakers debut. I'm convinced Ainge sent IT to Cleveland to sabotage them, but then we helped the Cavs out by sending them the best SG LeBron has ever played with (Team USA excluded). Also love that Clarkson and Nance are wearing 8 and 24 respectively. Shoutouts to both of them for beating down OKC to show PG that even with him, OKC wouldn't make it past the Cavs, his only solution is to come to LA.
 
I was trying to figure out why Clarkson changed his jersey number. Didn't realize nance did as well. That's a cool tribute. Both of them played with Kobe though, especially his last game which was really fun to watch
 
I was trying to figure out why Clarkson changed his jersey number. Didn't realize nance did as well. That's a cool tribute. Both of them played with Kobe though, especially his last game which was really fun to watch
Nance's dad called the Cavs to tell them to give Jr his old number 22 (which is retired), but Jr chose not to take it and went with 24 instead. Apparently Sr will try to convince his son to wear number 22 this summer lol.

EDIT: Losing Nance has really hurt our defense the past two games. Also, refs were soft to give out all those technicals to Rondo, IT, and Luke.
 
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With Porzingis injured my Knicks essentially get to tank for 2 years. Its what they need to do.

The Lakers did well for themselves considering their goal, but they are playing a dangerous game here. They are essentially losing Nantz, Clarkson, and Randle just to have a shot at LeBron and George. On top of that they helped Cleveland get a lot better. They get pick 29 to savr face, but you have to wonder wbat happens if they strike out or if thats worth it to only get George.

Cleveland did great and what's scary is that they still have the BK pick and could use that to get even better if LeBron decides to stay there and commits in a market where Blake Griffin went for a 1 and a 2.

The big picture this deadline is that teams that are not competitive should stop buying out players before the postseason eligibility deadline. All the contenders are looking to the buyout market now instead of moving picks.
 
They are essentially losing Nantz, Clarkson, and Randle just to have a shot at LeBron and George. On top of that they helped Cleveland get a lot better. They get pick 29 to savr face, but you have to wonder wbat happens if they strike out or if thats worth it to only get George.
Three things:
1. We were always going to have to lose Clarkson to clear room for Paul George, that's been the plan for a long time, and Nance has also been on the trading block for a while because he was the necessary sacrifice for a team to take on Clarkson's deal.
2. We aren't losing Randle yet. We can still match any offer sheet he signs (though it could complicate things if he signs an offer sheet the moment he's able to and PG takes a while to make his decision).
3. Getting that first rounder is more than "saving face". Notice how only one first rounder was traded on deadline day, and we got it. Teams are really reluctant to trade first rounders in the current NBA because they're valuable in rebuilding. With our recent draft record (Nance, Clarkson, Kuzma, Hart, to a lesser extent Zubac and Bryant), we could possibly find another player whose floor is an elite role player with that pick. Maybe that pick can be used in a future trade as well to grab someone else.

I'm fully on board with only getting PG and re-signing Randle (maybe he takes the QO to get a bigger pay day next summer) and rolling over some cap room to next summer. Lonzo should be back this week, and if we can remain competitive enough to finish 10th place in the West, it's not hard to convince PG that we'll be playoff-bound next season with or without him. And with him, who knows, second round if we're lucky and Lonzo/Ingram/Kuzma/Randle continue to develop?
 
Another thing to consider is what the FA market is going to be like this summer. With the salary cap flatlining, and an abundance of centers floating around, Randle's value isn't what it once was. DeAndre Jordan will probably set the market for what a limited offense big gets paid going forward. I'll be very surprised if it's 20mil or more. The Lakers shouldn't have too much trouble retaining Julius for something like 5years 65 million. Additionally they could be smart and put a huge chunk (18-24mil) in the first year of the contract, since it appears LeBron isn't coming (which I'm fine with and prefer actually) and keep enough cap space to sign PG to a max and gun for kawhi or somebody in 2019. The there are only 8 teams with at least 10mil in cap space this summer and half of them are in rebuild mode so the market to steal randle is very small. I'm gonna miss nance, he was a great energy guy role player but with him gone it helps clear the logjam at big/pf. Randle can develop into a devastating 2nd unit and smallball 5 and spell minutes at the 4 if needed. With basketball becoming positionless his ability to switch onto smaller faster guards will be invaluable and the drop off on offense is minimal. He'll always be limited by his "short" arms but being a lefty helps offset that a bit
 
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The thing that worries me is that Pelinka didn't mention Randle when he was talking about our future after the trade deadline. I still hope we keep him on a decent deal (the QO would be great, but something around $15m a year wouldn't be outrageous).

Is it safe to say that Boogie is no longer in our plans?
 
If Dell demps remains the gm in NOLA he'll probably resign boogie to a max contract. All in the name of convincing Davis he should stick around. I would hate it if Pelinka threw a huge contract at boogie. On the one hand I think he learned something from the previous management struggles with injured players (Dwight, Nash Kobe at the end) and steer clear. On the other hand he may convince himself otherwise, especially being Kobe's former agent and rapping him after an Achilles year. Just no way to tell what he's gonna do, but the next 1.5 years could make or break his tenure with the Lakers because you know Magic won't be the fall guy
 
The Hornets are looking to hire Mitch Kupchak as their GM. Lakers fans know what he's capable of doing without Jim Buss.

I'm very curious as to what OKC will do with PG. Even if Melo takes a paycut, they're looking at a massive luxury tax. This, for a team that wasn't even willing to pay an extra $2m a year to keep Harden with their Finals core.
 

Aura

Mesmerized
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I really don't think melo is going to stay in okc, because he literally joined for a ring. Okc winning the finals is probably not gonna happen, and he's gonna join the rockets as was his original plan.
 
Solid win over a lottery team tonight. Nice to see Zubac getting more run. If Luke can minimize isaiah's usage and keep building continuity/chemistry with the younger guys I believe the future is extremely bright for this lot. I'm really happy we didn't trade randle and hope we ink him a new deal this summer.
 
Randle said he wants to stay, so hopefully we can convince him to take the QO and then pay him next summer so we can roll some cap space for Klay/Kawhi/whoever else. It's ridiculous that other teams weren't giving anything more than a second rounder for Randle.
 
Randle is a good player but teams know that the Lakers are clearing space and I think Randle is a player that a team with space will tie up in RFA while the Lakers are waiting on George and LeBron. His value is a timing and contract issue.

RFA means Randle is going to get an offer sheet. He won't skip his first payday for the QO because good players just don't do that.
 
Randle is a good player but teams know that the Lakers are clearing space and I think Randle is a player that a team with space will tie up in RFA while the Lakers are waiting on George and LeBron. His value is a timing and contract issue.

RFA means Randle is going to get an offer sheet. He won't skip his first payday for the QO because good players just don't do that.
Yes but again, only a handful of teams even HAVE any usable cap space this year. You really think they're gonna use it on a good-not-great player like randle? The league is overflowing with centers and point guards right now, and seeing as randle isn't the prototypical space the floor and excellent defense big that most teams want, I think the Lakers can retain him on a reasonable QO.

I don't understand people who think there are going to be a bunch of big contracts handed out this summer like the last two years. The cap FLATLINED. And almost every team is still stuck with one or two al albatross contracts from 2016. That's one of the reasons there were less star players moved before the trade deadline this year. Hardly anyone has the necessary expiring contracts to swap out for an incoming max contract. Probably the summer of '19 is when we'll begin to see salaries begin to normalize and an increase in expensive FA signings.
 
If Randle wants to stay, he'll wait until we finish off the other deals before committing to any deal. If he wants to leave, his best option is to take the QO and then become a UFA next summer, when the cap is expected to be $108m, rather than being tied down to us for another 4 years if we match. This is why I don't understand the Wolves giving Wiggins the max already, they could've saved a lot of money if they had waited for him to sign an offer sheet and then matched.

EDIT: Taking the QO now and then signing a 4-year deal with any team would also put him at the 10-year veteran mark at the time of his next contract (unless there's a PO in said 4-year deal and he opts out at that point). This would make him eligible for a contract starting at 35% of the cap, rather than 30% of the cap if he were to take a 4-year deal now and be at the 9-year veteran mark.

In any case, our best option is to extend the QO, keeping his cap hold at $12.4m, rather than flat out extending him before gets any offers. The maximum deal another team can offer him is a 4-year deal starting at $25.25m with 5% annual raises, and at this moment, only the Hawks, 76ers, and Bulls can give him that deal. Of course, he isn't worth the max, but a desperate team could potentially offer one to him (like Otto Porter received last summer). Other teams that can throw offers at him are the Mavericks and Kings at perhaps $18m. Dallas would be a homecoming for Randle, but they really aren't looking to even contend for playoffs any time soon. They've also had atrocious luck with RFAs recently in Harrison Barnes and Chandler Parsons, not to mention the entire DeAndre Jordan debacle (though that was UFA).

Sign/opt in-and-trade is another possibility for teams with no cap room, but there's no reason that either they or the Lakers would agree to that unless a star player were leaving that team (Kawhi sick of Spurs?) or we were getting one of our targets in return (Paul George and OKC).

Meanwhile, OKC is a mere 1.5 games up on 9th-seeded Clippers and the Cavs first rounder is 2 games away from being #16. Paul George is playing the 2 with Ingram at the 3, right?

EDIT 2: I ran some numbers with arbitrary salary caps starting with the 2021-22 season (source for 2020) just to see how Randle's contract could possibly play out if he were to sign:

1) A 4-year max deal this summer followed by a 5-year max deal with the same team after that; and
2) The QO, then signing a 4-year max with a new team next summer followed by a 5-year max deal with the same team after that.

Red text indicates new contract. I stopped at age 33 in his 14th season because it is very unlikely he'll continue to get max deals at that point. Going with option 1, he'll total just more than $326m over 9 years and with option 2, he'll total almost $380m over 10 years. Not counting the last year of option 2, he'll have just under $321m over the 9 years which is less than option 1, but again he'll unlikely be able to command huge deals at that point. So unless there's a significant dip in salary cap for the 2023-24 season, it does seem like option 2 is better in the long-run. This is obviously assuming that he's only going to take max contracts (which I don't think he's worth tbh, but let's assume some team offers him one because there's always one) and not the supermax (which I don't think he's going to be eligible for anyway).

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