Trades

[Spens1]

Would use Schroeder in a S&T. If we can somehow turn him into like Myles Turner or a player like that i would be very happy (would take a third party), we'd have to add but a big that can stretch and defend next to A.D would make a big difference.

Wouldn't mind sending Kuzma out for like Lonzo in a S&T or try and see if we can make a move for Rubio or someone like that (probably not for Kuzma straight cause Rubio has been somehow worse than Kuz). Other option may be Kuzma S&T + THT + some combination of picks for Lowry (if that is indeed allowed) and bring Derozan on a full MLE (and offer incentives and hook him up with endorsements etc). I'd also move KCP, he's far too streaky to be relied upon as an offensive threat.

Lowry-Derozan-Lebron-A.D-Turner is a real dreamland scenario obviously for us, but if we can even pull off like one of these it would make a big difference.

The main thing above everything is construct the roster properly, so that means letting Drummond and maybe Gasol walking and bringing in athletic centre's who can run the floor and maybe stretch it as well (Wouldn't mind baynes for that) and bringing in dwight howard as a third option centre. Bring in Melo as a stretch 4.

[tamaraw08]

Nobody is saying he is on Lillard's level, but the narrative he's not a good shooter for the shots he takes is simply not real.
He has the sample to back that up(5 consecutive seasons). Schroder for example had exactly one year(last) and reverted to norm afterwards.

It was true the first 4-5 years of his career, yes. But he improved vastly on that end and he made the leap to all-star status afterwards as a result.


Stevens doesn't like Kemba, there are numerous reports that they hate eachother. Stevens clearly wanted to replicate the Clippers wing duo even when Kemba was healthy, thus limiting his usage and scoring opportunities.

I don't think that's an issue with us. It's one thing to be the 3rd banana to Davis and Lebron who actually did something in their life, whole another thing to be the 3rd banana to a couple of 22-23 year olds who don't even have both of them combined the league experience that Kemba has.

I'm not saying Stevens was wrong, but I also can see Kemba's point of view on not really accepting that situation without pouting.


Salary is not an issue. Yes, he's overpaid. But we're capped out, we shouldn't care about that as long as it's not an albatross contract for numerous years. Kemba has one year left on his deal and then a PO. Given the fact that he's 31, he'll probably opt out if he has a healthy year to score one last 4 yr deal before he gets to the minimums.


Only concern I have about him is his health. This long offseason though might sort that out.

I don't know man how bad was their relationship and how different is their approach bec Kemba's shot attempts are usage rate were not that different from his 8 seasons with another team. With Boston, shot 24 attempts(higher than his first 5 years) vs 24.5, USG rate with Boston was 26.7 with Boston (which is higher than his first 5 years). and 27.3 with Charlotte.
Be that as it may, health is a major concern with me. Dealing with knee problems is very complicated. He had an offseason, then he missed 29 games including the first 11 games and back to backs and then missed key games in the playoffs where I felt any coach would be frustrated. Before Boston, he attacked the basket where he took 25.6% from 0-3 feet vs just 16.7 with the Celtics.
as they say, they best ability is availABILITY. That is my reason for not wanting Lonzo back, with Schroder's refusal to get the vaccine is a red flag for me too. BTW, I cringed at the rumor that Westbrook might come here too .

[ROballer]

Again, I'm not even a big Kemba fan. But we need a consistent 3rd scoring option badly and the only pieces we have to offer are two guys who have been non factors at the end of the season. Their value couldn't be any lower than this.

It's a what have you done for me lately league, see Ben Simmons, Joe Harris, Kristaps Porzingis, etc.
Both KCP and Kuzma were sub zero performers in the Phx series and that's the fact. It might be unfair to judge them solely on that, but rest assured their struggles will be mentioned in any trade offer we might hand out even by the opposing GM's.


It's not who we want, but who can we get. We don't have the trading pieces to get who we want.
Standing pat is not an option either, that's clear to anyone.

Who can we get in the mold of Kemba/other scorer for the package we have to offer? I've thrown Kemba's name because we can absolutely can get him if we want to, Presti will trade his mother for picks.
But I absolutely will entertain any other name as long as we **** shake up the tree a little bit.

[Pythagoras]

It's not who we want, but who can we get. We don't have the trading pieces to get who we want.
Standing pat is not an option either, that's clear to anyone.

Both points are spot on. The Lakers were 21-6 to start the season, and then went 7-7 after losing their second best player. They were up 2-1 on Phx in the playoffs, and then lost the next 3 games by double digits after losing their second best player at the half of game 4. Losing your second best player shouldn’t result in that significant of a drop off. If it does, it tells you the rest of the roster isn’t good enough. The Clippers by contrast, lost their best player and was still able to take down the favored Jazz.

The options for the assets the Lakers have aren’t going to be ideal, so you do the best you can.

Kemba, (if healthy)
Buddy Hield
Kyle Lowry
Brogdon

[tamaraw08]

It's not who we want, but who can we get. We don't have the trading pieces to get who we want.
Standing pat is not an option either, that's clear to anyone.

Both points are spot on. The Lakers were 21-6 to start the season, and then went 7-7 after losing their second best player. They were up 2-1 on Phx in the playoffs, and then lost the next 3 games by double digits after losing their second best player at the half of game 4. Losing your second best player shouldn’t result in that significant of a drop off. If it does, it tells you the rest of the roster isn’t good enough. The Clippers by contrast, lost their best player and was still able to take down the favored Jazz.

The options for the assets the Lakers have aren’t going to be ideal, so you do the best you can.

Kemba, (if healthy)
Buddy Hield
Kyle Lowry
Brogdon

When it was widely reported that the Lakers were going after Kawhi a couple of years back, I wanted Kyrie or Kemba instead of Butler and Vucevic etc bec of fit imo. I only consider Kemba right now if they get an extensive physical exam and full body scans and MRI.
I prefer Brogdon over an aging Lowry. Exploring trades would be very difficult and Rob have been pretty good in the past.
Lebron, Paul and AD would have to be very busy recruiting these free agents. I have a feeling they get Gary Trent Jr would be attainable he shot a very good 40% from 3 in 3 seasons in Portland but not that great in Toronto.

[TylersLakers]

Again, I'm not even a big Kemba fan. But we need a consistent 3rd scoring option badly and the only pieces we have to offer are two guys who have been non factors at the end of the season. Their value couldn't be any lower than this.

It's a what have you done for me lately league, see Ben Simmons, Joe Harris, Kristaps Porzingis, etc.
Both KCP and Kuzma were sub zero performers in the Phx series and that's the fact. It might be unfair to judge them solely on that, but rest assured their struggles will be mentioned in any trade offer we might hand out even by the opposing GM's.


It's not who we want, but who can we get. We don't have the trading pieces to get who we want.
Standing pat is not an option either, that's clear to anyone.

Who can we get in the mold of Kemba/other scorer for the package we have to offer? I've thrown Kemba's name because we can absolutely can get him if we want to, Presti will trade his mother for picks.
But I absolutely will entertain any other name as long as we **** shake up the tree a little bit.

I would not trade Kuzma or anyone for Kemba. If he gets bought out and wants to sign for cheap, by all means - I'd love that. For not for $35M a year for the next 2 years.

[TylersLakers]

Would use Schroeder in a S&T. If we can somehow turn him into like Myles Turner or a player like that i would be very happy (would take a third party), we'd have to add but a big that can stretch and defend next to A.D would make a big difference.

Wouldn't mind sending Kuzma out for like Lonzo in a S&T or try and see if we can make a move for Rubio or someone like that (probably not for Kuzma straight cause Rubio has been somehow worse than Kuz). Other option may be Kuzma S&T + THT + some combination of picks for Lowry (if that is indeed allowed) and bring Derozan on a full MLE (and offer incentives and hook him up with endorsements etc). I'd also move KCP, he's far too streaky to be relied upon as an offensive threat.

Lowry-Derozan-Lebron-A.D-Turner is a real dreamland scenario obviously for us, but if we can even pull off like one of these it would make a big difference.

The main thing above everything is construct the roster properly, so that means letting Drummond and maybe Gasol walking and bringing in athletic centre's who can run the floor and maybe stretch it as well (Wouldn't mind baynes for that) and bringing in dwight howard as a third option centre. Bring in Melo as a stretch 4.

It's honestly really impossible to acquire anyone in a sign and trade unless we move KCP + Kuzma.

Our roster is this (assuming Harrell opts out):

LeBron: 41.2M
AD: $35.4M
KCP: $13.1M
Deng: $5.0M
Kuzma: $13M
Gasol: $2.7M

= $110.4M

Salary Cap: $112M
Luxury Tax: $140M

And the hard cap is in the neighborhood of $145M. If we acquire any player in a sign and trade, that immediately "hard caps" us which means we can't go ABOVE that hard cap number. The same thing happens when you use the FULL mid-level exception. Why the Lakers never convinced Harrell to take $100K less last off-season, I'll never understand. But it hard-capped us last year, and that's why we really couldn't add anyone to our team until the pro-rated amount fit into our hard cap spot.

So if we acquire Lowry in a sign and trade, you add his salary onto that $110.4M amount which Brian Windhorst expects to be in the 20-25M range. Which means we would have basically $10M to squeeze THT, Caruso, MLE, vet minimums, etc. It would be impossible. If we acquire Lowry or anyone in a sign and trade, we basically have to trade KCP + Kuzma if we want to re-sign Alex Caruso, which I think should be Priority #1B this off-season.

From an asset management standpoint, it makes more sense to re-sign Schroder to a team-friendly deal. Either 3-4 years starting at $16M-18M or 2 years starting at $20-22M. We're allowed to sign him to any amount because we have his Bird Rights which means we can go above the cap to sign him. But if we let him go.. we don't gain that cap space back to spend on someone else.

So in my opinion, the moves to make are:

- Shop Kuz, Gasol + 1st round pick for a player who fits our team better. I've speculated Myles Turner, Malcolm Brogdon, Harrison Barnes, Buddy Hield, Brook Lopez, etc.

- Use THT in a sign and trade to another team where that team acquires him. That way we can get another proven player to help us. Teams like Chicago (Thad Young), Cleveland (Larry Nance or Taurean Prince), Toronto (Chris Bouchard), Indiana (Justin Holiday), Orlando (Terrence Ross).

- Re-sign Caruso (we have Bird Rights, we can go over the cap)

- Use tax-payer MLE: We were a luxury tax team last year, so we're limited to the tax-payer MLE of about $5.8M - The key is not to spend that full amount. Use $5.5M of it either on one player or split it up into two.

- Use vet minimums to fill out roster spots.


So in theory, our team could like this this:

LeBron: $41.2M
AD: $35.4M
Harrison Barnes: $20.2M
Schroder: $20M
Thad Young: 14.2M
KCP: $13.1M
Caruso: $10M
Nerlens Noel: $3.0M
Wayne Ellington: $2.5M
Carmelo Anthony: $2.6M (vet min)
Markieff Morris: $2.6M (vet min)
Jared Dudley: $2.6M (vet min)
Patty Mills: $2.6M (vet min)
Gorgui Dieng: $2.6M (vet min)
Otto Porter: $2.6M (vet min)
Deng: 5.0 (stretch) -- doesn't count on roster, but does our cap

Schroder/Caruso/Mills
KCP/Ellington/
Barnes/Young/Porter
LeBron/Carmelo/Morris/Dudley
AD/Noel/Dieng

Total cost of roster: $177.6M - An expensive roster but one that I think can compete with a 8.5 man rotation in the playoffs of Schroder/Caruso/KCP/Barnes/LeBron/AD/Young/Ellington/Noel

But by not acquiring anyone in a sign and trade and not spending the full exception, we don't hard cap ourselves at that $145M number. We give ourselves an extra $32M to play with. Now, it certainly would cost the Buss family a LOT of money.. but that's the price we have to pay for the next two years while LeBron is under contract.

Confusing, but I hope the break down helped people when thinking of trades and rosters. It's not as easy to do a sign and trade anymore as it used to be.

[Spens1]

Deng is still on 5 mill. Kupchak ought to be blacklisted if he wasn't such a good GM for us before.

[tamaraw08]

Deng is still on 5 mill. Kupchak ought to be blacklisted if he wasn't such a good GM for us before.

I really think it was Jim Buss was the main guy to be blamed for this crazy contract. He was very desperate to keep his job so went all out to get the best free agents he thought would help this team get to the playoffs.

[tamaraw08]

Would use Schroeder in a S&T. If we can somehow turn him into like Myles Turner or a player like that i would be very happy (would take a third party), we'd have to add but a big that can stretch and defend next to A.D would make a big difference.


- Use vet minimums to fill out roster spots.


So in theory, our team could like this this:

LeBron: $41.2M
AD: $35.4M
Harrison Barnes: $20.2M
Schroder: $20M
Thad Young: 14.2M
KCP: $13.1M
Caruso: $10M
Nerlens Noel: $3.0M
Wayne Ellington: $2.5M
Carmelo Anthony: $2.6M (vet min)
Markieff Morris: $2.6M (vet min)
Jared Dudley: $2.6M (vet min)
Patty Mills: $2.6M (vet min)
Gorgui Dieng: $2.6M (vet min)
Otto Porter: $2.6M (vet min)
Deng: 5.0 (stretch) -- doesn't count on roster, but does our cap

Schroder/Caruso/Mills
KCP/Ellington/
Barnes/Young/Porter
LeBron/Carmelo/Morris/Dudley
AD/Noel/Dieng

Total cost of roster: $177.6M - An expensive roster but one that I think can compete with a 8.5 man rotation in the playoffs of Schroder/Caruso/KCP/Barnes/LeBron/AD/Young/Ellington/Noel


Confusing, but I hope the break down helped people when thinking of trades and rosters. It's not as easy to do a sign and trade anymore as it used to be.

I really like Otto Porter and Patty Mills' ability to stretch the floor bec of their ability to shoot but I don't think they will agree to a min contract. Noel fired Klutch so I don't think he would want to see Paul's face.
I like Ellington but again giving Vogel THE LIST OF PROSPECTS IS MUST, so Frank can scratch/cross off players who can't cut it according to his defensive principles bec he would simply just BENCH THEM.

[Pythagoras]

Would use Schroeder in a S&T. If we can somehow turn him into like Myles Turner or a player like that i would be very happy (would take a third party), we'd have to add but a big that can stretch and defend next to A.D would make a big difference.


- Use vet minimums to fill out roster spots.


So in theory, our team could like this this:

LeBron: $41.2M
AD: $35.4M
Harrison Barnes: $20.2M
Schroder: $20M
Thad Young: 14.2M
KCP: $13.1M
Caruso: $10M
Nerlens Noel: $3.0M
Wayne Ellington: $2.5M
Carmelo Anthony: $2.6M (vet min)
Markieff Morris: $2.6M (vet min)
Jared Dudley: $2.6M (vet min)
Patty Mills: $2.6M (vet min)
Gorgui Dieng: $2.6M (vet min)
Otto Porter: $2.6M (vet min)
Deng: 5.0 (stretch) -- doesn't count on roster, but does our cap

Schroder/Caruso/Mills
KCP/Ellington/
Barnes/Young/Porter
LeBron/Carmelo/Morris/Dudley
AD/Noel/Dieng

Total cost of roster: $177.6M - An expensive roster but one that I think can compete with a 8.5 man rotation in the playoffs of Schroder/Caruso/KCP/Barnes/LeBron/AD/Young/Ellington/Noel


Confusing, but I hope the break down helped people when thinking of trades and rosters. It's not as easy to do a sign and trade anymore as it used to be.

I really like Otto Porter and Patty Mills' ability to stretch the floor bec of their ability to shoot but I don't think they will agree to a min contract. Noel fired Klutch so I don't think he would want to see Paul's face.
I like Ellington but again giving Vogel THE LIST OF PROSPECTS IS MUST, so Frank can scratch/cross off players who can't cut it according to his defensive principles bec he would simply just BENCH THEM.

I have a hard time seeing anyone offer Otto Porter a significant contract given his injuries over the last couple of years. He’s a valuable player when healthy but that health is giant question mark.

[tamaraw08]

I really like Otto Porter and Patty Mills' ability to stretch the floor bec of their ability to shoot but I don't think they will agree to a min contract. Noel fired Klutch so I don't think he would want to see Paul's face.
I like Ellington but again giving Vogel THE LIST OF PROSPECTS IS MUST, so Frank can scratch/cross off players who can't cut it according to his defensive principles bec he would simply just BENCH THEM.

I have a hard time seeing anyone offer Otto Porter a significant contract given his injuries over the last couple of years. He’s a valuable player when healthy but that health is giant question mark.

OMG, you are right, that back problem is a cause of concern but I still don't see him just getting offered a vet Minimum bec of his high 3pt accuracy and he's only 28, unless MRI is revealing a chronic problem.
btw, I am hearing so many scenarios involving famous players with below ave 3pt % ave like Westbrook, Dinwiddie etc. I am not liking it...

[TylersLakers]

I really like Otto Porter and Patty Mills' ability to stretch the floor bec of their ability to shoot but I don't think they will agree to a min contract. Noel fired Klutch so I don't think he would want to see Paul's face.
I like Ellington but again giving Vogel THE LIST OF PROSPECTS IS MUST, so Frank can scratch/cross off players who can't cut it according to his defensive principles bec he would simply just BENCH THEM.

I have a hard time seeing anyone offer Otto Porter a significant contract given his injuries over the last couple of years. He’s a valuable player when healthy but that health is giant question mark.

OMG, you are right, that back problem is a cause of concern but I still don't see him just getting offered a vet Minimum bec of his high 3pt accuracy and he's only 28, unless MRI is revealing a chronic problem.
btw, I am hearing so many scenarios involving famous players with below ave 3pt % ave like Westbrook, Dinwiddie etc. I am not liking it...

If acquire Westbrook.. the whole front office needs to be fired. They can't be that stupid.

[lazybatman]

I wanna talk about KCP a bit here, seeing as he has been listed as random throw in, in most of the trade scenarios here based on a 5 game sample size. Our 3 point shooting totally fell apart in the Phoenix series and it's the easy scapegoat for the loss.

Let's take a moment to consider the AD+Lebron injuries & Dennis being way off the boil after he returned from his Covid Vacation. This not only caused reduced direct production from our 3 best players but also a huge drop off in playmaking, ergo the shooting. It wasn't just AD going down. Bron & Dennis were clearly not close to 100%. That right there is 90% of the problem

There aren't many real 3&D(more appropriately D&3) guys better than KCP in the NBA. And those better than him aren't available. For context we just saw 3 of the elitest shooters(Joe Harris, MPJ & Davis Bertans) totally get exposed during the playoffs. As a bonus neither of them (and most of the other 42% 3 fg guys you can pick off basketballreference.com) do not know how to play an ounce of defense.

For a team that hangs its hat Defense, to lose KCP(+other assets like Kuz) for a player like Kemba(injury prone & a seive on defense) is like shooting yourself in the head.

Yeah, you watched that Utah-Flippers series and felt small cos our boys can't shoot as good. We'll, guess what, those two teams were the best offenses in the history of NBA. Their stars, who have the majority of the usage and shots on any team, are great 3 pt shooters - our stars are just barely about average.

Our stars and role players play good enough defense to keep those offenses down to 100 - 110 points, which we can easily score if even 2 of those 3 top guys were a 100%. And the reason for that is that we don't have weaknesses in our core rotation guys.

If the basketball gods told me today that the Lakers would shoot a perfectly consistent 32% 3fg every game next season with this squad, I would take that deal in a heartbeat, knowing we are far better at everything else. The 26% 3fg is an anomaly, which doesn't happen often.

KCP & Caruso should be absolutely untouchable. THT too, barring a slam dunk opportunity like Brogdon+Myles or Ben Simmons+Seth Curry.

We were up 2-1 and 10 points in Game 4 over the current favorites to win the title, before AD went down. Stop the panic and over reactions, and trust in our stars being healthy and whole for next season.

My targets -
High IQ playmaking - TJ McConnell / Rondo / Mclaughlin on the cheap. Lonzo / Brogdon for Dennis + picks.
Athletic rim defense & lob threat - Myles Turner/Rishaun Holmes, Chris Wood(may be available for trade considering their 2030 timeline)
D&3 - James Ennis III, Bobby Portis(may want more than our MLE), Torey Craig, Snell

[Spens1]

what would a big like Mo Bamba cost us to trade for?

[ROballer]

I wanna talk about KCP a bit here, seeing as he has been listed as random throw in, in most of the trade scenarios here based on a 5 game sample size. Our 3 point shooting totally fell apart in the Phoenix series and it's the easy scapegoat for the loss.

Let's take a moment to consider the AD+Lebron injuries & Dennis being way off the boil after he returned from his Covid Vacation. This not only caused reduced direct production from our 3 best players but also a huge drop off in playmaking, ergo the shooting. It wasn't just AD going down. Bron & Dennis were clearly not close to 100%. That right there is 90% of the problem

There aren't many real 3&D(more appropriately D&3) guys better than KCP in the NBA. And those better than him aren't available. For context we just saw 3 of the elitest shooters(Joe Harris, MPJ & Davis Bertans) totally get exposed during the playoffs. As a bonus neither of them (and most of the other 42% 3 fg guys you can pick off basketballreference.com) do not know how to play an ounce of defense.

For a team that hangs its hat Defense, to lose KCP(+other assets like Kuz) for a player like Kemba(injury prone & a seive on defense) is like shooting yourself in the head.

Your points are way off. If you(I'm talking general terms here, not just you) licked his ass after a playoff bubble performance(overrated I might add) but small sample size, you also need to acknowldege his bad play this playoffs. Stop the double standard.

Another thing, stop overrating his **** talents. He's nowhere close to being one of the best 3D guys in the league.
Did you know that he's a 36% shooter from 3 with the Lakers when there are fans in the arena? I'm not making this up, it's real.

Bubble play(last playoffs) and empty arenas(this season) is THE ANOMALY. Playing in front of crowds IS NOT. This guy gets rattled, simple as that, an 80ish game sample size in which he didn't have a crowd to boo him and he shot close to 40% from 3( wide open set shots, he doesn't do stepbacks, off the dribble or any kind of other 3's) doesn't make him a good shooter.

He's a damn average shooter. That's the league average, about 36%.

And he's way overrated as a defender by any metric you can find. Way.

Matisse Thybulle is a 2nd year guy who plays off the bench for 20 mins a game and he's gotten 2nd team all D and his metrics are outstanding on defense. And there are TONS of better guys, Pope is simply not in the "great" category, he's borderline "good".
And I don't give a **** about what you see him do defensively, if it's not backed by the metrics it doesn't matter.

This team needs scorers, not defenders. We had defenders and we got teams to score 100ish points, under their average.
But guessed what? We scored 85-90 ourselvez.

You can't win a playoff series with bad offense in this league. You can't. It's not the early 00's, you adapt or die.
But you can win with average and even bad defense on occasions. It's not a 50/50 league anymore, but a 75% O and 25% D league.

And Kuzma and KCT are nowhere near the difference between good defense and bad one in the first place, come on now. He didn't even play in Game 4 and we still held Phx to 97 points and Booker shot 5/16 with 7 turnovers. Next guy stepped up and that's what she wrote.

Whenever Lebron and/or Davis miss games(and it's happened A LOT lately), you can have your pals KCT and Kuzma come in to dinner because they're as useless as you and me at basketball, and we have no chance of winning.

KCP and Caruso are redundant talent, period. Both do sorta the same things.
One in the rotation is more than enough. If not you can always find more. The notion they're hard to find is ridiculous, Clippers just got Batum from the FA market who's way better, they also got Terrence Man for scraps basically, a very late pick.
Royce O' Neale is one of the league's best 3D guys and was also a late pick. It's the easiest position to fill in the league..

Kemba+Caruso >>>>>> KCP+Caruso+Kuzma on a team. More diversity, better fit.

And to end it, stop throwing other players under the bus if you want to defend these two bozos, it totally refutes your point. As bad as you think they played, they came nowhere close to our two clowns. Danny Green was nowhere near this bad and paid the price, so should they.

Even if one of them had played ok and you wanted to keep him, it's about the salaries here. You need to package them both together if you want to get someone with an all star caliber play and salary. That's why you keep seeing them paired together in trades.

[Pythagoras]

I wanna talk about KCP a bit here, seeing as he has been listed as random throw in, in most of the trade scenarios here based on a 5 game sample size. Our 3 point shooting totally fell apart in the Phoenix series and it's the easy scapegoat for the loss.

Let's take a moment to consider the AD+Lebron injuries & Dennis being way off the boil after he returned from his Covid Vacation. This not only caused reduced direct production from our 3 best players but also a huge drop off in playmaking, ergo the shooting. It wasn't just AD going down. Bron & Dennis were clearly not close to 100%. That right there is 90% of the problem

There aren't many real 3&D(more appropriately D&3) guys better than KCP in the NBA. And those better than him aren't available. For context we just saw 3 of the elitest shooters(Joe Harris, MPJ & Davis Bertans) totally get exposed during the playoffs. As a bonus neither of them (and most of the other 42% 3 fg guys you can pick off basketballreference.com) do not know how to play an ounce of defense.

For a team that hangs its hat Defense, to lose KCP(+other assets like Kuz) for a player like Kemba(injury prone & a seive on defense) is like shooting yourself in the head.

Your points are way off. If you(I'm talking general terms here, not just you) licked his ass after a playoff bubble performance(overrated I might add) but small sample size, you also need to acknowldege his bad play this playoffs. Stop the double standard.

Another thing, stop overrating his **** talents. He's nowhere close to being one of the best 3D guys in the league.
Did you know that he's a 36% shooter from 3 with the Lakers when there are fans in the arena? I'm not making this up, it's real.

Bubble play(last playoffs) and empty arenas(this season) is THE ANOMALY. Playing in front of crowds IS NOT. This guy gets rattled, simple as that, an 80ish game sample size in which he didn't have a crowd to boo him and he shot close to 40% from 3( wide open set shots, he doesn't do stepbacks, off the dribble or any kind of other 3's) doesn't make him a good shooter.

He's a damn average shooter. That's the league average, about 36%.

And he's way overrated as a defender by any metric you can find. Way.

Matisse Thybulle is a 2nd year guy who plays off the bench for 20 mins a game and he's gotten 2nd team all D and his metrics are outstanding on defense. And there are TONS of better guys, Pope is simply not in the "great" category, he's borderline "good".
And I don't give a **** about what you see him do defensively, if it's not backed by the metrics it doesn't matter.

This team needs scorers, not defenders. We had defenders and we got teams to score 100ish points, under their average.
But guessed what? We scored 85-90 ourselvez.

You can't win a playoff series with bad offense in this league. You can't. It's not the early 00's, you adapt or die.
But you can win with average and even bad defense on occasions. It's not a 50/50 league anymore, but a 75% O and 25% D league.

And Kuzma and KCT are nowhere near the difference between good defense and bad one in the first place, come on now. He didn't even play in Game 4 and we still held Phx to 97 points and Booker shot 5/16 with 7 turnovers. Next guy stepped up and that's what she wrote.

Whenever Lebron and/or Davis miss games(and it's happened A LOT lately), you can have your pals KCT and Kuzma come in to dinner because they're as useless as you and me at basketball, and we have no chance of winning.

KCP and Caruso are redundant talent, period. Both do sorta the same things.
One in the rotation is more than enough. If not you can always find more. The notion they're hard to find is ridiculous, Clippers just got Batum from the FA market who's way better, they also got Terrence Man for scraps basically, a very late pick.
Royce O' Neale is one of the league's best 3D guys and was also a late pick. It's the easiest position to fill in the league..

Kemba+Caruso >>>>>> KCP+Caruso+Kuzma on a team. More diversity, better fit.

And to end it, stop throwing other players under the bus if you want to defend these two bozos, it totally refutes your point. As bad as you think they played, they came nowhere close to our two clowns. Danny Green was nowhere near this bad and paid the price, so should they.

Even if one of them had played ok and you wanted to keep him, it's about the salaries here. You need to package them both together if you want to get someone with an all star caliber play and salary. That's why you keep seeing them paired together in trades.

Yeah, I completely agree with all of these points. KCP is certainly a guy who I’d like to keep if possible, but I’m not going to lose sleep if the Lakers lose him. As you mentioned, he’s not even remotely close to the difference between the Lakers between the Lakers being the best defense in the league vs a middling one. I think AD+Lebron+a group of 12 year old Girl Scouts could field a top 5 defense. The Lakers offense was a train wreck in the playoffs. The offense that you get from your guards is far more important than the defense you get from them, (see guys like Devin Booker and Trae Young, both of whom are weak sauce defenders but both are still playing). You can then grab a big, switchy 3-D forward to make up the loss of KCP. Otto Porter is a name I’ve seeen thrown around that would be perfect if healthy.

The Lakers also need to address their C position. AD moving to the C would be the perfect solution. I’m not holding my breath on that one though, given similar players like Duncan, Garnett, and Sheed all didn’t make the move to full time C till their 30s when they lost some quickness. If AD isn’t ready yet the Lakers need a guy who can be a small ball C and space the floor.

[Pythagoras]

We were up 2-1 and 10 points in Game 4 over the current favorites to win the title, before AD went down. Stop the panic and over reactions, and trust in our stars being healthy and whole for next season.

You could put a healthy Lebron and AD on the Thunder and they would have had them up 2-1 over Phoenix too. That doesn’t mean the Thunder have a good roster. I’m not even saying you definitely move KCP (Kuzma needs to be gone yesterday though). If Harrell opts in and can be used to facilitate a deal, that’s more ideal, but if Harrell doesn’t opt in, KCP probably becomes the team’s best trade chip.

[Up-And-Coming]

It's not who we want, but who can we get. We don't have the trading pieces to get who we want.
Standing pat is not an option either, that's clear to anyone.

Both points are spot on. The Lakers were 21-6 to start the season, and then went 7-7 after losing their second best player. They were up 2-1 on Phx in the playoffs, and then lost the next 3 games by double digits after losing their second best player at the half of game 4. Losing your second best player shouldn’t result in that significant of a drop off. If it does, it tells you the rest of the roster isn’t good enough. The Clippers by contrast, lost their best player and was still able to take down the favored Jazz.

The options for the assets the Lakers have aren’t going to be ideal, so you do the best you can.

Kemba, (if healthy)
Buddy Hield
Kyle Lowry
Brogdon

I like that list of names and seems like some of our best-case scenarios w/ our assets (Kuz, #22 FRP, THT if necessary). I know this isn't a big name but I would add Devonte' Graham to that list as he's a restricted free agent who we may be able to work a sign-and-trade for. LaMelo moves into the starting lineup full-time w/ Terry Rozier and I don't know how much Charlotte would be willing to pay to keep Devonte' off the bench w/ Malik Monk as well.

In a vacuum, there's no consensus that Devonte' is a better player than Schroder, but I think they are around the same caliber and I think Devonte' is a much, much better fit w/ Bron and AD as he's an actual 3-point shooter (38% on 9 attempts the last 2 seasons) and he's a capable passer and had an amazing 3.6 assists to turnover ratio last season. Add on top of that he's a couple years younger than Dennis, he seems like he'd be a better fit.

Advanced stats show that Dennis was a better defender last season, but I think a lot of that has to do with our team's/Vogel's defensive schemes. Advanced stats showed Devonte' has been better offensively the last 2 seasons and also had a higher VORP.

[Pythagoras]

It's not who we want, but who can we get. We don't have the trading pieces to get who we want.
Standing pat is not an option either, that's clear to anyone.

Both points are spot on. The Lakers were 21-6 to start the season, and then went 7-7 after losing their second best player. They were up 2-1 on Phx in the playoffs, and then lost the next 3 games by double digits after losing their second best player at the half of game 4. Losing your second best player shouldn’t result in that significant of a drop off. If it does, it tells you the rest of the roster isn’t good enough. The Clippers by contrast, lost their best player and was still able to take down the favored Jazz.

The options for the assets the Lakers have aren’t going to be ideal, so you do the best you can.

Kemba, (if healthy)
Buddy Hield
Kyle Lowry
Brogdon

I like that list of names and seems like some of our best-case scenarios w/ our assets (Kuz, #22 FRP, THT if necessary). I know this isn't a big name but I would add Devonte' Graham to that list as he's a restricted free agent who we may be able to work a sign-and-trade for. LaMelo moves into the starting lineup full-time w/ Terry Rozier and I don't know how much Charlotte would be willing to pay to keep Devonte' off the bench w/ Malik Monk as well.

In a vacuum, there's no consensus that Devonte' is a better player than Schroder, but I think they are around the same caliber and I think Devonte' is a much, much better fit w/ Bron and AD as he's an actual 3-point shooter (38% on 9 attempts the last 2 seasons) and he's a capable passer and had an amazing 3.6 assists to turnover ratio last season. Add on top of that he's a couple years younger than Dennis, he seems like he'd be a better fit.

Advanced stats show that Dennis was a better defender last season, but I think a lot of that has to do with our team's/Vogel's defensive schemes. Advanced stats showed Devonte' has been better offensively the last 2 seasons and also had a higher VORP.

Graham is a guy whose name I’ve seen mentioned lately and yes, I agree he’d be a nice get. I agree he’s a slightly better fit than Dennis as well. A potential swap of Harrell for Graham is something I saw mentioned in an article and I liked the idea.