Hinkie Process: Rebuilding in an Era of Distrust

[milesfides]

The Lebron experiment has failed.

For four years, the Lakers and all their fans have endured the painful rebuilding process. It's been an imperfect process, but it yielded a handful of quality assets. These young players were encouraged to grow under a young coach who came off the best winning streak in history, a players' coach who had the full trust of both championship veterans and rookies, who pledged to run through a wall for him. The Lakers were young, dumb, and bad, but were refreshingly fun, unselfish, and modern. It was easy to root for them, because one could see the new culture being set for long term success. Top free agents such as Gordon Hayward, Paul George, Kevin Durant, and even Lebron James all took notice.

But under Magic and Rob, the Lakers didn't trust the process. They took a bad risk on an aging superstar and tried to change everything around. It failed.

But it's not irreversible, although D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, and Ivica Zubac have all been casualties in one way or another. Wasted value for sure.

So why not do the sensible thing? Change one thing. Trade Lebron. Get back to what makes sense; develop assets, manage the cap, and sign the right free agents at the right time.

Let's start with trading Lebron for...well, let's say nothing but capspace. Then we get Kawhi, who wants to go home but doesn't want to play with Lebron (can't blame him).

Can you imagine, building around a true 2-way MVP DPOY in his prime with $54m in capspace to spend to fill out the roster?

2019-20 season, 109m cap:

Lonzo 8.7m
Ingram 7.3m
Kawhi 32.7m
Kuzma 2m
Wagner 2m
Hart 1.9m

~$54m capspace to spend.

The Lakers should do this. Jeannie should. If Magic and Rob won't trust the process... somebody else does.

A former Stanford business school graduate, the architect of the 76ers' rise as contenders, a true analytics pioneer, somebody who is actually competent with experience:

[Laker_Kid]

o god. yet another one.

[rzzzzz]

looks like Hinkie is selling his Philly residence to Harper. (non sequitur on the surface, but...)

[SlimShady83]

I want us to trade Lebron for Simmons ... Let's Lebum go back to the east and team with Butler/Imbiid

Then you trade Ball and who ever not named Kuz/BI for Lavine - Hope chicago want to get rid of Lavine

Sign KL and Kyrie

C)Macgee
PF) Simmons
SF) BI
SG) KL
PG) Kyrie

6th man King Kuz, Lavine, Rondo <> the rest with some solid big man

[cool93]

I want us to trade Lebron for Simmons ... Let's Lebum go back to the east and team with Butler/Imbiid

Then you trade Ball and who ever not named Kuz/BI for Lavine - Hope chicago want to get rid of Lavine

Sign KL and Kyrie

C)Macgee
PF) Simmons
SF) BI
SG) KL
PG) Kyrie

6th man King Kuz, Lavine, Rondo <> the rest with some solid big man

Lol, no

Sent from my G3416 using RealGM mobile app

[Slava]

At this point any full time NBA executive would do a better job than part timers like Magic and whoever else is moonlighting as Lakers staff during the day and hollywood mogul by night..

[Michael Lucky]

The optics would be bad if we did trade him. No superstar is going to trust playing here at that point. We've made our bed with Lebron now we have to lay in it for another couple of years.

[milesfides]

Highly disagree. Stars, including Kawhi and Butler, and to some extent Kevin Durant, have crossed out the Lakers precisely because of Lebron.

But now, an equally big problem is Magic Johnson. He embarrassed his own players, publicly. He also tried to trade all of them. The players can't possibly trust him, and how can any potential free agent overlook what had happened?

The Lakers have the worst of both worlds: Lebron, whom stars don't want to play with (I doubt even AD will sign up with a 36-year old Lebron in 2020), both for the toxic environment as well as the fact that's he's old. And now you can't possibly believe in Magic.

The Lakers have got to clean house.

Championship expectations are a joke, we're not on that timeline. Get back to team's appropriate phase: acquire assets and develop talent. Trust the process, do it the right way.

[Flash17]

I don't think the Lakers are interested in nuking the entire franchise just to sign a guy who very well could have hidden Myositis Ossificans from the Spurs. You can tell that he's not 100% right now, and there are concerns in Toronto that it could be something degenerative, which makes the already bad Myositis Ossificans look like a walk in the park.

The risk wasn't associated with signing LeBron, it was with the roster construction that resulted in listening to LeBron's request for "tough playmakers." Perhaps LeBron didn't have retreads like Rondo, Lance, Beasley and others in mind, but the Lakers ran with it to the extreme and forgot to add shooters.

[Rafer24]

Promote Jesse Buss and Ryan West. We have capable people in the building.

[Kilroy]

I'm just going to say something I've been saying since she fired Mitch and Jim... Jeannie has way too much power in this Org...

She's fundamentally a Marketing person at best... She's good for finding the pretty, superficial solution. She's full of high minded beautiful concepts, but she has no clue how to build a successful sports organization or hold professionals accountable... Magic sold her a bill of goods and she jumped at it because she knew she didn't know how to run a successful franchise...

It's why Dr Buss divided responsibilities the way he did.

I really like the idea of the Buss Kids continuing to run the Franchise, but they need a Jerry West type character in between them and any Lakers decisions.
Right now, Jeannie is the problem IMO... She has to make a choice... Continue to smile and defer to Magic, or Start talking the same words she used to get rid of Mitch and Jim, and start pressuring Magic to take ownership of this mess...

The problem is, all Jeannie's capable of doing is pointing to the record, she's not tuned in enough to cite specific bad decisions...

Like she's indicated in interviews, she's basically clueless about the bball side of things, and that cluelessness makes her ineffective in a situation like this at holding Front Office accountable.

[Michael Lucky]

Lakers needed to sell optimism in order to bring FAs in the fold. Magic's hire provided that. From that aspect i understand the hire. Having said that anyone who's ever spent 5 minutes listening to Magic analyzing player talent or team management/coaches etc, would have known that he would be terrible in that area.

[madmaxmedia]

The optics would be bad if we did trade him. No superstar is going to trust playing here at that point. We've made our bed with Lebron now we have to lay in it for another couple of years.

I think a trade would be conceivable, if both parties agreed to a divorce. But that's not gonna happen unless the upcoming offseason is a failure and Kawhi, KD, etc have signed with other teams. Because at that point screw the optics, no one wants another year of this.

But again, at that point all the big targets will have been lost, so not sure what the path forward realistically would be. Kicking the can forward yet another year would be really depressing. I don't think Maginka has the skills and experience to construct a playoff roster in any way that doesn't involve landing big stars that presumably solve everything.

[NBAWestFan]

I think there is a point to trading Lebron is old.

If you can get a younger Superstar at less $ I would consider that especially if Kawahi would come here.

[No name]

I'm just going to say something I've been saying since she fired Mitch and Jim... Jeannie has way too much power in this Org...

She's fundamentally a Marketing person at best... She's good for finding the pretty, superficial solution. She's full of high minded beautiful concepts, but she has no clue how to build a successful sports organization or hold professionals accountable... Magic sold her a bill of goods and she jumped at it because she knew she didn't know how to run a successful franchise...

It's why Dr Buss divided responsibilities the way he did.

I really like the idea of the Buss Kids continuing to run the Franchise, but they need a Jerry West type character in between them and any Lakers decisions.
Right now, Jeannie is the problem IMO... She has to make a choice... Continue to smile and defer to Magic, or Start talking the same words she used to get rid of Mitch and Jim, and start pressuring Magic to take ownership of this mess...

The problem is, all Jeannie's capable of doing is pointing to the record, she's not tuned in enough to cite specific bad decisions...

Like she's indicated in interviews, she's basically clueless about the bball side of things, and that cluelessness makes her ineffective in a situation like this at holding Front Office accountable.

Jeanie is clueless about basketball. Magic is clueless about building a team. Rob is a rookie GM. Lakers have a kid coach. Lakers have LeBron and all that he brings, drama wise.

What could go wrong?

[coughdropstuff]

The Lebron experiment has failed.

For four years, the Lakers and all their fans have endured the painful rebuilding process. It's been an imperfect process, but it yielded a handful of quality assets. These young players were encouraged to grow under a young coach who came off the best winning streak in history, a players' coach who had the full trust of both championship veterans and rookies, who pledged to run through a wall for him. The Lakers were young, dumb, and bad, but were refreshingly fun, unselfish, and modern. It was easy to root for them, because one could see the new culture being set for long term success. Top free agents such as Gordon Hayward, Paul George, Kevin Durant, and even Lebron James all took notice.

But under Magic and Rob, the Lakers didn't trust the process. They took a bad risk on an aging superstar and tried to change everything around. It failed.

But it's not irreversible, although D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, and Ivica Zubac have all been casualties in one way or another. Wasted value for sure.

So why not do the sensible thing? Change one thing. Trade Lebron. Get back to what makes sense; develop assets, manage the cap, and sign the right free agents at the right time.

Let's start with trading Lebron for...well, let's say nothing but capspace. Then we get Kawhi, who wants to go home but doesn't want to play with Lebron (can't blame him).

Can you imagine, building around a true 2-way MVP DPOY in his prime with $54m in capspace to spend to fill out the roster?

2019-20 season, 109m cap:

Lonzo 8.7m
Ingram 7.3m
Kawhi 32.7m
Kuzma 2m
Wagner 2m
Hart 1.9m

~$54m capspace to spend.

The Lakers should do this. Jeannie should. If Magic and Rob won't trust the process... somebody else does.

A former Stanford business school graduate, the architect of the 76ers' rise as contenders, a true analytics pioneer, somebody who is actually competent with experience:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2018/06/09/steve-kerr-michael-jordan-lebron-james-two-best-players/687325002/

Steve Kerr calls lebron the 2nd GOAT.

Brett Brown, Brad Stevens, Stan Van gundy, and pretty much every other coach all call lebron an all time great and one of the GOATs.

But yup, you definitely know more about basketball than they do am I rite?

I guess nba coaches are stupid then. You're right, lebron is trash...

[coughdropstuff]

I'm just going to say something I've been saying since she fired Mitch and Jim... Jeannie has way too much power in this Org...

She's fundamentally a Marketing person at best... She's good for finding the pretty, superficial solution. She's full of high minded beautiful concepts, but she has no clue how to build a successful sports organization or hold professionals accountable... Magic sold her a bill of goods and she jumped at it because she knew she didn't know how to run a successful franchise...

It's why Dr Buss divided responsibilities the way he did.

I really like the idea of the Buss Kids continuing to run the Franchise, but they need a Jerry West type character in between them and any Lakers decisions.
Right now, Jeannie is the problem IMO... She has to make a choice... Continue to smile and defer to Magic, or Start talking the same words she used to get rid of Mitch and Jim, and start pressuring Magic to take ownership of this mess...

The problem is, all Jeannie's capable of doing is pointing to the record, she's not tuned in enough to cite specific bad decisions...

Like she's indicated in interviews, she's basically clueless about the bball side of things, and that cluelessness makes her ineffective in a situation like this at holding Front Office accountable.

Jeanie is clueless about basketball. Magic is clueless about building a team. Rob is a rookie GM. Lakers have a kid coach. Lakers have LeBron and all that he brings, drama wise.

What could go wrong?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2018/06/09/steve-kerr-michael-jordan-lebron-james-two-best-players/687325002/

Considering nba coaches consider lebron to be one of the GOATs, I think they know more than you do bud.

[No name]

I'm just going to say something I've been saying since she fired Mitch and Jim... Jeannie has way too much power in this Org...

She's fundamentally a Marketing person at best... She's good for finding the pretty, superficial solution. She's full of high minded beautiful concepts, but she has no clue how to build a successful sports organization or hold professionals accountable... Magic sold her a bill of goods and she jumped at it because she knew she didn't know how to run a successful franchise...

It's why Dr Buss divided responsibilities the way he did.

I really like the idea of the Buss Kids continuing to run the Franchise, but they need a Jerry West type character in between them and any Lakers decisions.
Right now, Jeannie is the problem IMO... She has to make a choice... Continue to smile and defer to Magic, or Start talking the same words she used to get rid of Mitch and Jim, and start pressuring Magic to take ownership of this mess...

The problem is, all Jeannie's capable of doing is pointing to the record, she's not tuned in enough to cite specific bad decisions...

Like she's indicated in interviews, she's basically clueless about the bball side of things, and that cluelessness makes her ineffective in a situation like this at holding Front Office accountable.

Jeanie is clueless about basketball. Magic is clueless about building a team. Rob is a rookie GM. Lakers have a kid coach. Lakers have LeBron and all that he brings, drama wise.

What could go wrong?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2018/06/09/steve-kerr-michael-jordan-lebron-james-two-best-players/687325002/

Considering nba coaches consider lebron to be one of the GOATs, I think they know more than you do bud.

How is this relevant to the quoted messages?

[coughdropstuff]

The Lebron experiment has failed.

For four years, the Lakers and all their fans have endured the painful rebuilding process. It's been an imperfect process, but it yielded a handful of quality assets. These young players were encouraged to grow under a young coach who came off the best winning streak in history, a players' coach who had the full trust of both championship veterans and rookies, who pledged to run through a wall for him. The Lakers were young, dumb, and bad, but were refreshingly fun, unselfish, and modern. It was easy to root for them, because one could see the new culture being set for long term success. Top free agents such as Gordon Hayward, Paul George, Kevin Durant, and even Lebron James all took notice.

But under Magic and Rob, the Lakers didn't trust the process. They took a bad risk on an aging superstar and tried to change everything around. It failed.

But it's not irreversible, although D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, and Ivica Zubac have all been casualties in one way or another. Wasted value for sure.

So why not do the sensible thing? Change one thing. Trade Lebron. Get back to what makes sense; develop assets, manage the cap, and sign the right free agents at the right time.

Let's start with trading Lebron for...well, let's say nothing but capspace. Then we get Kawhi, who wants to go home but doesn't want to play with Lebron (can't blame him).

Can you imagine, building around a true 2-way MVP DPOY in his prime with $54m in capspace to spend to fill out the roster?

2019-20 season, 109m cap:

Lonzo 8.7m
Ingram 7.3m
Kawhi 32.7m
Kuzma 2m
Wagner 2m
Hart 1.9m

~$54m capspace to spend.

The Lakers should do this. Jeannie should. If Magic and Rob won't trust the process... somebody else does.

A former Stanford business school graduate, the architect of the 76ers' rise as contenders, a true analytics pioneer, somebody who is actually competent with experience:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2018/06/09/steve-kerr-michael-jordan-lebron-james-two-best-players/687325002/

Steve Kerr calls lebron the 2nd GOAT.

[stan francisco]

I liked our young team better without LeGroin, I’d trade him for cap space tomorrow.

I’d like to see Pelagic demoted to lead our scouting, and replace them with a J West / Hinkie.

Get Klay. Best fit with our youngs.