Amazing he was 48% before shipping. Nba HoF is truly a joke.

You act like waiting another year is in lebrons best interest when he’s 35. If he was 22, great but at 35 he can’t wait at all.

AD loses out on the supermax by getting traded. His $4M helps offset this in his mind imo

agree he should have been 100% all along

Well there is no such thing as a nba hof so...

For having experience as an agent, Pelinka did a horrendous job negotiating this deal. What was the Pelicans BATNA (best alternative to not accepting the Lakers offer)? It was probably a ****ty offer from the Celtics or keeping AD on the team going into this year. The Pelicans did not want to have AD going into this year when they are trying to have positive momentum with Zion. This Lakers offer that was accepted was far and away the best offer the Pelicans had when they also had the leverage because AD didn't want to play on any other team.

This is the Lakers last summer to build a team. They need depth because AD and Lebron need to take it easy in the regular season. Part of trading for AD should be dependent on maximizing the cap space to actually build a legit contender starting next year. An $8 million difference in cap space is huge. That's an extra legit starter. For a team with three players on the roster who could even play in the playoffs that is enormous.

The timing of the trade matters so much more to the Lakers than the Pelicans. The fact that it wasn't part of the deal means Pelinka & even Griffin are pretty stupid and don't understand how to maximize the pie in a negotiation. Also, Hart going to the Pelicans makes me think that, too. (He's worth so much more to the Lakers than the Pelicans.)

In any negotiation you have to understand what is this worth to me and what is this worth to the other party. You give what is worth more to them than you (Ingram and the 4th pick) and you get what is worth more to you than them (waiting to complete the trade to maximize cap space).

That is slightly simplistic but it's how you create as much collective value as possible. There was additional collective value on the table that they weren't able to figure out.

Josh Smith did not need perverse motivation to suck.

Nah, what I'm saying is AD shouldn't care about LeBron's best interest very much.

unless he wants to win titles

Surprise teams come out of nowhere all the time. Last summer, people were saying the same about Kawhi before the Raptors jumped in.

With the Warriors going down, plenty of teams could decide to roll the dice with AD and follow the Kawhi model in trading for a superstar that doesn't seem to want to play for you.

The other problem for the Lakers is they needed to make the move now. FA isn't that far away and with just last year's team, they were going to struggle to attract talent. Now with LeBron and AD, they can go after stars/ring chasers.

While an offer of Ingram/4th might eventually get it done (and I doubt that as I see Ingram as a pretty marginal asset as a player going into his final rookie contract season and about to be overpaid), it's not one the Pelicans are going to quickly accept.

Nothing he has done in the last year indicate winning is the main goal.

Good point re: Hart....He would definitely be much more valuable to LAL

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...rmous-ad-trade

Lowe on the trade, more of a summary than any unique takes but a good 1

Now you got 2 losers who can't make the playoffs in the West on the same team.

I suspect there's a conspiracy among a handful of players, their agents, and apprised execs, to make LA vs. NY the dominant league narrative. A little bit of planning and coordination allows guys to do it on the biggest stage rather than lotto ping pong balls consigning them to Cleveland, New Orleans, San Antonio.

You've been going in on Griffin and I don't understand why. It's definitely in his best interest to have the trade go before July 7. Not only for the cap space and SL thing, but it's extremely beneficial for the Lakers to be the worst version of themselves in the future, and not having the space to sign a value max certainly helps in that regard.

Fair points on both. I just think it means way more to the Lakers than the Pelicans and I am kind of shocked the Lakers didn't include their preference on the timing in the terms of the deal.

Griffin just strikes me as a guy who sucks up to the right people in positions of power. The media eats out of the palm of his hand when I think his track record is mediocre at best. I have heard him on NBA TV and he never struck me as a bright thinker.

I will say he structured this Lakers deal very well. I'd spin off Ingram though if I were him.

There is no chance the Lakers get AD for Ingram and the #4, maybe if they had #2 or #3 pick. Minimum would be Ball/Ingram/#4 and if NO traded with someone else and it came out the Lakers wouldn't throw in Hart and 2 other first the Lakers would get shredded.

Fair enough. I wonder if there is value to keeping all of the former Lakers mainly because we have some pretty good data points out there that suggest players were not the best version of themselves playing for Walton/LAL.

If anything they might have one of the better defenses we've seen from a young team.

If a max player is coming that trade kicker is waived.

If a max player isnt coming, that trade kicker isnt waived.

Its as simple as that.

If Kawhi is knocking on that door looking to get in and needs 4M from AD, AD will open that door himself.

The dude begged his way out of New Orleans to hopefully play for a championship, and a guaranteed championship comes with Kawhi.... Suddenly AD gonna just say no? 5 years 140M or wtv he can sign next summer with Lakers, and 4M total is gonna be the deal breaker? Not a chance.

Durant left even more money on the table so that a bunch of role players could stay with the team.

I don't think he's waiving the 4 mil because Klutch is all about player empowerment aka letting Lebron jump from organization to organization to pillage assets, so he can pad his GOAT status

Davis won his first playoff series at age 24, same as Michael Jordan.

LeBron James made the NBA Finals 8 consecutive years and is literally the most clutch player of this generation and at worst the 2nd most clutch player of all time.

Both LeBron and Davis are, taking the bearish view on them, top 8 players in the NBA.

I don’t understand how this visceral hatred and personal animosity towards LeBron can blind people from the truth. The Lakers just traded a bunch of scrubs for a Hall of Famer, top 5 player in his prime. Josh Hart is ****ing terrible and coming off a bad injury. I like Lonzo but he’s also coming off a terrible injury and has an extremely capped ceiling due to being a PG who can’t shoot and shoots 40% from the FT line on like 1 attempt per game. Ingram is also ok but can’t really shoot either and will get paid next season. None of these guys are even top 100 NBA players. The #4 overall pick is gonna be DeAndre Hunter or Culver, both of whom are bona fide scrubs who can’t play. No disrespect whatsoever.


The Lakers traded a rotten penny, two nickels, and the rights to a few scratch off lotto tickets for a crisp $100 bill.

They did this when nobody was willing to give up more than two nickels.. And they need that rotten penny and the rights to those lottery tickets in order to make that $100 bill useful. They are also a big reason why those two nickels aren't worth more.

I don't get why people don't understand this.

You wouldn’t have taken this poop potpourri platter for Jokic and he’s worse than Brow.

I’m not saying the Pelicans didn’t do incredibly well given the situation. The Lakers were in a tough spot given the locker room issues and Bron’s narrowing window. They had to get this deal done now and the offer showed that. It also makes them more attractive this offseason to potentially land another elite player. And given the landscape of the rest of the league next year, they are immediate title contenders. Things like lamenting the loss of Josh Hart to acquire Brow is absurd.

Hart plays 35 mins for the warriors vs the raptors*

Teams that have had to play legit scrubs (2011 heat and 2019 warriors) got exposed. The 2016 finals swung on the egregious 3pt foul and horrendous Vareajo minutes. A super thin roster around LBJ and AD won’t win.

Jokic is under contract for four more seasons