BallerTalk wrote:Too much of your comment is hindsight and speculation.
Saying Dwight was declining is clearly a hindsight statement, and not particularly accurate either. ... I don't think there's any question the Lakers would have been a better team then had they retained him.
Speculation over injuries is pointless on its face.
Players get injured all the time and for a myriad of reasons. Moreover, the risk of injury increases as a player ages.
Considering Kobe was 17 seasons into his NBA career when the first injury happened, it seems silly to try to attribute it to a failed trade from nearly 2 years before.
... To reiterate my original point, it makes no sense to blame the Lakers demise on the CP3 trade when the franchise bounced back almost immediately. The very next season they fielded one of the most celebrated lineups in NBA history! .
EDIT - and previously, from your OG post:
They overpaid for Nash, failed to resign Dwight, and handcuffed their salary cap to an injured Kobe. Those three things had a much bigger impact on the Lakers nosedive than anything else.
so i guess you had 2 "original" points ... and to re-iterate my point EVERYTHING you cited as reasons for the Lakers fall from grace was
greatly influenced by the rescinded Paul trade. Which is not the same as saying the trade directly causing things. You're taking a very beyond a reasonable doubt approach to this, but surely you can't possibly think those factors were not at all affected by Paul never making it to LA.
What isn't speculation is the link bw fatigue and injuries. What also isn't speculation is, if players shoulder a lesser burden, they wear down less. So, yes, i'm speculating, but @ least imho, they're reasonable speculations. if Kobe is the same guy that closed out that season when he signs his extension, the narrative is completely different. and for the record, i'm attributing all of this (feeling a bit like a broken record here, but u keep misquoting me) to the
ripple effects the rescinded trade had. No Kobe wasn't doomed to tear his achilles the day Stern intervened, but a series of events was triggered.
as far as re-signing Dwight ... better than really, really bad (not speculation btw, the past few years have been the worst run in Lakers history) is still bad. btw, speculation alert, so brace yourself (altho you speculating the Lakers would have been
unquestionably better with Dwight seems to not qualify); So the team becomes Dwight's team as Kobe essentially misses the next two years. Aren't they still in a tailspin if that's the case? Or is your contention that Dwight was so good @ the time, they would have been contenders? (long version below) i say even if the team was marginally better, that would be offset by the lack of assets gained by being really bad (draft picks & cap space). So, even if Dwight is as good as you say, and he impacts the team positively, they're a better team with a messier cap sheet and lesser long term assets. Long story short, they'd be in an arguably worse situation even if you say the team would be better on the court, which of course is no way shape or form speculation bc u said it.
yes they pivoted and recovered (?) ... but they did that in reaction to the rescinded trade!! how much more black and white can it get? that's not to say there's a definite causal relationship, but only strong contributing factors.
=Long version of Dwight staying in LA=
let's compromise and say the team is an OK team, but instead of just Kobe's bad contract, they have max money tied up in Dwight (not that it mattered as they didn't do anything of note w/that cap space). Further, had the team invested in Dwight and built around him, the problems are compounded as that would be a shift away from the modern NBA. So @ best, if Dwight was the very good player you say he was (Rox went to the playoffs cuz of Harden, not Dwight; if anything he got in the way more than he helped; if he was so good, why'd they let him walk?) the Lakers are a fringe playoff team (better than 14 Dallas? 15 Pels or Mavs?) and don't get the picks they got, bc Dwight "saved" them. Well my friend, this is still "nosedive" territory; only now they're even less asset rich and our current rebuild would only be in year 1. Unless ofc, you think Dwight is so good we cldv snagged a noteworthy FA while he's with LA; i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that doesn't happen, besides, it would be speculation.
