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I still never understood why the Lakers stretched Deng that year, when it was clear PG13 wasnt coming

I kinda wonder if Deng wasnt stretched, what the AD deal woulda looked liked. The biggest reason why the Lakers had to literally give every young player up was to make salary matching considerations. With Deng's deal still on the books, matching salary woulda been trivial.

Now i wonder if the Lakers woulda been able to keep 2 of Ingram/Lonzo/Hart, keeping one i felt was a no brainer (preferably Lonzo due to our lack of PG). The media and narrative UTTERLY destroyed those 3 and tanked their trade value. Now lo and behind now that theyre all ex-Lakers they get showered with love, but we all knew that was gonna happen. However at the time, all three were considered crap and damaged goods.

Hell without the cap shenanigans Bonga, Wagner, and Bryant would've likely been kept. Hell Zubac too. The team needed every shred of cap space that the 5mil Deng stretch was eating up.

Do ya'll feel that if Deng wasnt stretched the team woulda been way stronger? Would the AD trade have been mostly the same? How would keeping all of those Laker draft picks have made the roster look?

The thing that pisses me off so much... the Lakers barely missed on their draft picks. Bryant, Bonga, Wagner having a nice looking season in WAS. Zubac a great young low cost C for Clippers. Randle, Ingram, DLo, Lonzo, and Hart all looking like theyre gonna break out (well Randle has peaked though). The last miss i can think of is Andrew Brown, Svi Mykhaliuk is still too early to call... but goddamn the Lakers draft record HAS BEEN AMAZING.

Magic truly did piss away a potential dynasty...

The Lakers were under the cap, so we didn't "need" to include Ball and Ingram to match salaries. The fact that we did tells you that that was the price NO set for AD.
That said - if Deng's contract was still on the books, he would probably have been included in the trade, and we would have $5 more in cap space (assuming in that scenario that AD still waives his trade kicker). I won't be losing any sleep about losing the likes of Bonga or Wagner. But if AD walks next year, and some combination of Ball, Ingram and one of the 53 draft picks we lost blossoms in to a star, this could go down as one of the worst trades in NBA history.

mighty_duck wrote:But if AD walks next year, and some combination of Ball, Ingram and one of the 53 draft picks we lost blossoms in to a star, this could go down as one of the worst trades in NBA history.

What if we got a title in this one AD year?

danfantastk32 wrote:

mighty_duck wrote:But if AD walks next year, and some combination of Ball, Ingram and one of the 53 draft picks we lost blossoms in to a star, this could go down as one of the worst trades in NBA history.

What if we got a title in this one AD year?

If we get a title, AD won't walk
But then again, we're about one major groin tear from missing the playoffs altogether, and losing out on AD AND a decade's worth of assets (both past and future). We went all in on this. Let's hope we win!

In my opinion, looking back, weve made a few mistakes. Ill just mention a couple. We shouldve drafted porzingis.
We didnt retain one of those young centers we gave up, we have absolutely no idea how long cousins, howard mcgee will hold up.
Kawhi was a smokescreen, and we bit on it hard, he was never comin and it cost us a whole weeks time, which was huge in last years draft. However, the giving up ball, etc for AD was necessary, and we would do it again without hesitation, if need be.

Stretching Deng created cap for two max contracts, which was one of the major factors that lured Lebron. Without Lebron, AD doesn’t manipulate the market to allow the Lakers to trade for him.

dockingsched wrote:Stretching Deng created cap for two max contracts, which was one of the major factors that lured Lebron. Without Lebron, AD doesn’t manipulate the market to allow the Lakers to trade for him.

Sure, stretching Deng created 2 max slots, but PG13 signed like 1 min after midnight day of FA starting, and Deng coulda been stretched AFTER a 2nd max FA was secured and cap space needed. The timing of everything was just wrong. Also the Lakers didnt seem intent on keeping Randle, so there was no urgency in stretching Deng ASAP.

With Magic at the helm as PoBO everything was obviously a mess. Sure the Lakers came away with Lebron, but it seemed like he was intent on coming regardless of Magic's presence. Just the entire team building and blown trades of giving away all of the youth the Lakers accrued over the years for mostly nothing other than the AD trade, who's an impending FA.

LBJ + AD is just so goddamn potent. If only they had some help instead of this motley collection of scrap heap parts. The Lakers drafted beautifully over the past 5 years, its their own impatience that really limited the franchise's opportunities.

2014 - Randle Like him or not, not a bust, but wasted and let go for nothing
2015 - DLo, Larry Nance Jr, Andrew Brown DLo took awhile to develop but not a bust, LNJ was great for his slot, Brown bust
2016 - Ingram, Zubac Again, a young prospect that needed time to develop and he's busting ass in NOP, Zubac a nice young cheap C
2017 - Lonzo, Kuzma, Hart, Bryant Lonzo hasnt lived up to the hype but he's doing pretty good in NOP, Kuzma and Hart were great for slot. Bryant carved out a starting spot in WAS
2018 - MoWag, Bonga, Svi MoWag and Bonga both starting off strong with WAS, boy theyd look great off our bench... Svi too early to tell

Right off the bat, 5 years of draft picks... only 1 bust so far in Brown, a mid SRP. 2018 we gotta give more time, but looks very promising so far. The team had a ready made dirt cheap bench built off of late FRPs and SRPs from this list alone. Instead all we got left is Kuzma...

Vae Victus wrote:I still never understood why the Lakers stretched Deng that year, when it was clear PG13 wasnt coming

I kinda wonder if Deng wasnt stretched, what the AD deal woulda looked liked. The biggest reason why the Lakers had to literally give every young player up was to make salary matching considerations. With Deng's deal still on the books, matching salary woulda been trivial.

Now i wonder if the Lakers woulda been able to keep 2 of Ingram/Lonzo/Hart, keeping one i felt was a no brainer (preferably Lonzo due to our lack of PG). The media and narrative UTTERLY destroyed those 3 and tanked their trade value. Now lo and behind now that theyre all ex-Lakers they get showered with love, but we all knew that was gonna happen. However at the time, all three were considered crap and damaged goods.

Hell without the cap shenanigans Bonga, Wagner, and Bryant would've likely been kept. Hell Zubac too. The team needed every shred of cap space that the 5mil Deng stretch was eating up.

Do ya'll feel that if Deng wasnt stretched the team woulda been way stronger? Would the AD trade have been mostly the same? How would keeping all of those Laker draft picks have made the roster look?

The thing that pisses me off so much... the Lakers barely missed on their draft picks. Bryant, Bonga, Wagner having a nice looking season in WAS. Zubac a great young low cost C for Clippers. Randle, Ingram, DLo, Lonzo, and Hart all looking like theyre gonna break out (well Randle has peaked though). The last miss i can think of is Andrew Brown, Svi Mykhaliuk is still too early to call... but goddamn the Lakers draft record HAS BEEN AMAZING.

Magic truly did piss away a potential dynasty...

I always felt like we could have offered up Deng + Ingram + Kuzma to the Spurs and we could have gotten Kawhi. As high as I was on Ingram, I felt like that was the right play, and I still think we could have pulled that off when I see what the Spurs ended up taking.

Oh well, c’est la vie.

Pythagoras wrote:
I always felt like we could have offered up Deng + Ingram + Kuzma to the Spurs and we could have gotten Kawhi. As high as I was on Ingram, I felt like that was the right play, and I still think we could have pulled that off when I see what the Spurs ended up taking.

Oh well, c’est la vie.

Deng + Ingram + Kuzma

Hmm yea... i can see Pop molding Ingram and Kuzma into fine players. Maybe toss in a future FRP as needed. However i dunno if Pop can contain his rage boner long enough to accept that deal. I mean Demar Derozan isnt a bad player,but there's a reason the Raptors kept coming up short in the Playoffs.

Then its sign a 3rd superstar to go LBJ + Kawhi (i think there was enough cap had Deng been part of an outgoing deal) and/or trade everyone else (Lonzo, Hart, Wagner, Bonga, Svi, S&T KCP, crapton of unprot future FRP) for AD in the following year.

Sigh......

Magic really did screw everything up with his tampering and incompetence.

Deng is a negative assest in any trade. What in the world are you guys on. Adding Deng to any trade means we would have to give even more assets to get him off the payroll.

Pythagoras wrote:I always felt like we could have offered up Deng + Ingram + Kuzma to the Spurs and we could have gotten Kawhi. As high as I was on Ingram, I felt like that was the right play, and I still think we could have pulled that off when I see what the Spurs ended up taking.

Oh well, c’est la vie.

We'll never know, but there's approximately zero chance they were gonna trade a foundational superstar to their arch rival. That's before you even get into the fan base. Having lived in San Antonio for almost 20 years, I speak from hard-earned experience when I say they absolutely despise the Lakers. Trading him at all was bad enough, but to us? There's a decent chance they would have burned down the arena.

I love our little trips down memory lane.

If Kobe wouldn’t have trashed Bynum’s knee... If...

Pythagoras wrote:I always felt like we could have offered up Deng + Ingram + Kuzma to the Spurs and we could have gotten Kawhi. As high as I was on Ingram, I felt like that was the right play, and I still think we could have pulled that off when I see what the Spurs ended up taking.

Oh well, c’est la vie.

To be fair.....Kawhi was sitting at home with this mystery leg issue. Refusing to speak to his team, and media. Wasn't exactly a great time to go offering our promising young talent.

IMO....never mind the stretching. Why did we sign him and Moz in the first place?!?!?!! Boner contracts and everyone in the world not named Jim and Mitch knew it. There's your "if only...." scenario.