in these, the waning days of stern: 2013-2014 NBA regular season thread (part 1)

i thought yr point was that the lakers omg need kobe to rake in the $$$

I'm just saying the lakers operate in the stratosphere where the only other team operating is the Knicks. They have the financial flexibility and cushion to throw good money after bad. If they think they can make some big FA signings even w Kobe's contract on the books they will. They're not the Thunder

they will not make a big free agent signing with kobe on the books cause no major free agent wants to play on a team thats not going to win and filling one of yr max slots w a non max player is a sure way not to win, theyll prob sign a second tier free agent to a huge contract and suck lol

come join our tenth place team youre just what we need to put us over the top kevin love

James harden come play for us

o man harden on this lakers team would be pretty perfect

jd started managing the team soon after cablevision bought it iirc fyi

Which makes him unlike buss sr who guided his team to many many titles, yes

The real test is to see if the lakers can do the equivalent of agreeing to eddy curry and Jerome James contracts and still maintain their position as second most valuable franchise in the country

not sure what yr point is here poly

I don't think there's anything instructive about comparing Buss Jr. and Dolan Jr. They're heirs to fortunes, that's about it.

theyre incompetent heirs to fortunes, guys who didnt earn their jobs and suck at them, as jordan said #america

i believe the zach lowe column points out that the lakers are going to have to do some serious work to add even one max contract next summer which will leave them with a max guy, an undeserving max guy, and a team of probably worse scrubs than their current team of scrubs.

yup

theyll prob just resign pau tho

2 undeserving max guys if they get melo

it would be super funny if melo went from ny to la

i'm telling you they're banking on someone forcing a trade there

it's always happened!

So a sign and trade w gasol or Nash?

I look at the Lakers and I see a team that hasn't developed young talent since Jerry West left. That's not Buss Jr.'s fault. At some point he has to cut the cord on Kupchak, a bad GM who has also won a few titles. It's not an enviable position. To call Buss Jr. incompetent because ... of the Nash trade? What?

I have no idea why I'm defending this guy because i could not give a fuck but it doesn't make sense to me.

i've never heard anyone in the media say a single positive thing about lil buss

it seems like anyone with sources in the lakers thinks he's basically incompetent

To call Buss Jr. incompetent because ... of the Nash trade? What?

― polyphonic, Wednesday, November 27, 2013 11:55 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

giving mike d'antoni a three year contract?

yeah he just overpaid kobe and set the lakers back two years too

kupchak is bad too tho

not developing young players when you're constantly picking outside of the lottery is a pretty minor issue imo

its a pretty essential skill for winning in todays nba imho

giving mike d'antoni a three year contract?

The length of the coach's deal doesn't matter. He rolled the dice on an available veteran coach and struck out. He's been better than Mike Brown or Rudy Tomjanovich or Magic Johnson.

i'm telling you they're banking on someone forcing a trade there

it's always happened!

― le goon (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, November 27, 2013 11:54 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i agree with this, bad way to run things but it's all they know.

except for the part where phil jackson wanted to come back xp

its a pretty essential skill for winning in todays nba imho

― lag∞n, Wednesday, November 27, 2013 12:02 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

there are franchises (the lakers are one of them) that can survive without really "developing" young talent imo

but they did develop kobe so...

I don't think Phil Jackson was healthy for that team and I thought it was smart for them to go in another direction. But I don't think any new coach can actually coach the team until Kobe retires. D'Antoni is a decent assistant coach for Kobes.

i feel like its hard if you dont have a guy or two on a rookie contract contributing to fill out yr roster, like you dont need to find an allstar but its hard to have depth if you dont find contributors in the draft

http://sportsgif.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Dwight-Howard-Trash-Talks-Mitch-Kupchak.gif
http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/584308572.gif?1337660468

remember when the lakers were in the 2013 playoffs?

i thought those were warm up exhibitions for the spurs

5 on 5 drills.

what does howard say there

I'll beat your ass yous a bitch according to a google result

ill beat yr ass looks like it could be right but the last word isn't bitch

poor put-upon mitch kupchak

d'antoni probably my frontrunner for COY right now tbh

you'd think stotts would be getting quite a bit of consideration right now

oh man thinking about it how awesome would it be if the lakers had let kobe walk hed go to another team and be super motivated to get revenge and for sure declare publicly thats what he was up to and then take 30 shots a game while shooting sub 40% and playing no defense and getting injured a lot

d'antoni probably my frontrunner for COY right now tbh

― k3vin k., Wednesday, November 27, 2013 2:08 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol stop

what the lakers have overachieved and it's largely due to d'antoni's system. someone like stotts is an obvious choice but i have a harder time attributing that to coaching as opposed to their best players just playing better

stotts is a really good coach.

i'm not sure at a game under .500 how much the lakers have overachieved anyway

Everyone always wants to give coach of the year to the .500 team that should be .300 but I'll take Vogel or Pops.

yeah i mean pops should probably be in the lebron category of "should win it every year unless something crazy happens" but coaches can only do so much with the rosters they've got, this lakers team is a bunch of jokers and they're .500 in a tough conference