soxfan2003 wrote:Outsider's perspective. Kupchak obviously is in great position to do well in his job since lots of players want to play for the Lakers given the warm weather, huge market and franchise's history. The only thing that makes the job harder then some other teams is rebuilding is frowned upon and that some scorers may have misgivings with playing with Kobe Bryant.
Not Kwame for Pau great.
Being a GM with LAL is like being 1/4th GM, 3/4th answering to the LAL culture which is fans, owners, star power.
It's a very poor position one where anyone who becomes Kobe cannot be traded and where trading chips are determined as much by the players as the coaches. Something like a Dwight Howard trade even if it's a smart move is probably considered proof of being the worst GM in LA history at this point. (Lakers have never cared for success, just talk that satisfies the rich guys in the back and is good enough for the media.) It just so happens that when they chase big, they chase big and they demand big. (It's why Prime Pau Gasol is not ever acceptable to Phil but Phil also played the politics of keeping the ball away as much from Prime Gasol and keeping mum on it.)
soxfan2003 wrote:the Nash trade appeared to be a significant overpay and clearly the wrong coach was hired. Howard may not be working out as well as expected but the Lakers got him at a very good price all things considered but I was surprised by the price the Lakers paid for Nash simply given Nash's age. Nash is a player going to be 39, 40 and 41 heading into the next 3 playoffs. Realistically, he had at most one good season left before age really was a major factor. Given him a 3 year contract for 27 million seemed very hight to me but I realized other teams were perhaps willing to give him even more. But giving up 4 draft picks and 2 first rounders IMHO was really overpaying. At most he was worth 1 first rounder and one second.
The only thing I can think of is a Nash move making sense if the Lakers hadn't signed their TV contract yet and Nash was brought on board to raise the value of a potential TV deal.
From an outsider LAL fan, sort of active Orlando fan prior to the trade...Stan does a good job of overvaluing players for him. This created the illusion to some Orlando fans that Nash and Howard/Chris Paul and Howard were the missing formula for a Finals away from a dynasty. (The more of an Orlando RealGM fan you were, the more you acted like this was the Wonder Twins Power Activate to summon Wilt Chamberlain)
The other people including Mitch or Buss just jumped on board. Every one of these names are huge during the time they were traded: Turkoglu, Courtney Lee, Redick, Ryan Anderson, Gortat. None of these men are close to Howard's hype but they were all huge news. Gortat eventually meshed well with Nash. It's what I call "smart dumb" fanbase. Regardless of the users' intelligence or their ability to post great stats, most intelligent fans tend to be wrong at predicting a players' "instant fit". Even the news when Gasol was first traded was a good but not great fit. Lakers went on a run and it became a great fit ignoring how Boston was assembled that year. Odom ends up fixing Gasol-Kobe but a ring later, Pau's resurgence was the news. With those kind of buzz from the outside, it's impossible to not gamble on a Nash-Howard combo. The two had everything: star power, dual star like Shaq-Kobe, a passer that can mentor Howard to pass while you also had Kareem as a direct trainer, run and gun. On paper there's no way to play politics and tell any big shot behind the curtains that this was no Shaq-Kobe. Not pulling the trigger is on the level of not drafting Jordan because you wanted Earl Boykins behind the scenes. Stuff would get any GM killed in LA if the media gets a hold of it and sends it towards it's fans.
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