ozymandias818 wrote:TylersLakers wrote:ozymandias818 wrote:That sounds like the sort of stupid trade Brooklyn would make if they had our roster. We're not dumping two young assets for a future pick and cap space.
Rest assured, that outside of trading Russell, #2, Ingram, and probably Randle, Magic and Pelinka will do everything they can to try to get rid of Mozgov and Deng's salary. Mozgov is the more likely to move. There's no way that we rely solely on internal improvement to bring Paul George in as a free agent next summer. Magic hinted out they hoped to have two max spots available in 2018 -- the only way to that is by dishing one of Moz/Deng and stretching the other. If they do that and don't accumulate salary going into next off-season, we'll have 2 max spots + Randle's cap hold. Exactly where Magic and Pelinka want to be.
Yeah, why wouldn't we trade away the only chance we have of fielding a true center any time soon? Sure sounds like the contending team PG would want to be on in his prime!
What you're proposing is a bad deal. Even more problematic, our bait is a future pick. We don't need a future pick. At all. We need an elite player and you're fumbling away assets in your proposed deal that we could be using to trade for one. Clarkson is the piece to dump, he's not even on a rookie deal anymore.
The Lakers don't care about the future pick, my friend. They care only about getting rid of Mozgov's salary. Lakers have to create some cap flexibility and unfortunately, due to Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak, there has to be a casualty -- and if it's Zubac, so be it. The C position is so much less valuable in today's NBA. Larry Nance, Tarik Black and a free agent like Amir Johnson on a year contract could easily fill that void.
People don't talk about this, but statistically and analytically, Tarik Black was the best defensive C in the entire league in the second half of last season and 6th best in the first half. You get a guy like that on a one year contract for 6 million a season? Absolutely. That's not even a MLE number.
Read Sam Amick's article today. The Lakers have been tipped that Paul George is interested in coming, that much is clear. However, in order to get him, they have to clear salary cap space. We don't have the salary cap space to squeeze him in. And Magic talked about having TWO MAX SPOTS available on the radio the other day. In order to get that, they're going to have to get creative when it comes to Luol Deng and Mozgov.
If only one of us was in charge last off-season..
