The Lebron '20 Thread (Pt. 8)

[Ainosterhaspie]

He's more than borderline all-NBA. He earned 2nd team all NBA and was 7th in MVP voting.

[kayess]

People are being too optimistic on Chris Paul. He's almost never healthy in the playoffs and he isn't getting any younger. You don't trade 3 valuable rotation pieces for 1 super valuable one, even if it's in the position you're thinnest at.

Didn't Rose improve his shooting tremendously when he went to Minny? I remember us being mad that he didn't do that when he was with the Cavs LMAO.

[Cavsfansince84]

Something I've given a little more thought to as it relates to MJ/LeBron and LeBron's perceived coasting on defense from 2015-2019 is that no player since the Celtics's teams of the 60's played as many games in consecutive years as LeBron did from 2011-2018. Most people agree MJ coasted a bit in 93 and that was coming off of only 2 straight finals runs. LeBron by 2015 was coming off of 4 straight and then also had been playing a full nba schedule since he was 19. I think it's something that probably should be brought up a little more. MJ after 3 straight was ready to retire for a while. LeBron doing 8 straight while being a dpoy candidate for the first 4 is pretty damn amazing.

[mademan]

I think Dunn is gonna be a great player to get for a winning team. Dude is a lot like Caruso, great defense (even better than Caruos's), hustle player with a shaky shot

[nzahir]

Adding Rose to this roster would be such a bad decision. No shooting, old, ballhog, bad defender. Last thing this team needs.

This

I hope all these rumors are BS for now, we need more shooting, not less

Unless we are moving off of Rondo or losing KCP (hope not), I don't see who he replaces.

KCP and DG need to play as 3 and d guys

AC needs to clearly play. Great energy, very good defense, very high iq, and makes winning plays

We have Rondo, who was up and down in the playoffs, but overall a positive. He was awful in the regular season though, so maybe we can use someone for the regular season. But how will that rotation work in the playoffs?

We also have Avery...

I don't trust his health too much, but can minimize that with our depth

If we lose Avery and or Rondo, I may open up more to the idea, but I also prefer getting a guard who can shoot it.
JJ, Kennard, maybe Mills.

If we want a scoring type of guard, I rather get Schroeder if possible. At least he plays some defense and is a better shooter

You want 2 way guys in the playoffs. I know JJ and Kennard are not, but they would be limited in minutes likely and their offensive output would be very high with this teams spacing

[Heej]

I would take a flyer on Josh Jackson and MKG because you never know what they could unlock as shooters, in which case they're dynastic type role players that can be primary wing defenders for years. Gotta take the gamble at least.

I really hope Rob just values spacing with all the other signings. We need AD and Bron to be afforded the most room possible to operate. If you can get a high level wing defender I can stomach the trade-off for some poorer spacing, but can't be having that at the guard position like D Rose.

2-way role players are tough to find. Ideal off-season for me would be making the trade for CP3 and signing Gallo with the MLE and finding someone like Harkless to play the 2/3 in Danny Green's spot. I can't imagine Gallo's defense can be that much worse than Kieffs

[therealbig3]

Paul is never healthy for the playoffs when he needs to play big minutes and carry a big offensive load, that wouldn't be the case for the Lakers with LeBron and AD.

He'd easily be the best 3rd option in the league, and could play 25-28 mpg and play off the defensive attention that Davis and LeBron get.

IMO, it would be a no brainer, if possible.

[JulesWinnfield]

Read on Twitter

[KTM_2813]

Read on Twitter

Even though this graphic makes it clear that LeBron's teams have gone up against more top-end players than Jordan's teams did, I think it leaves out a couple of important pieces of information: The quality of LeBron and Jordan's teams each year, and the overall quality of opposition each year, respectively. IIRC, the quality of LeBron's team was almost always worse than the quality of opposition, whereas for Jordan it was almost always the opposite.

[Kingdibs19]

I’m a big Lebron fan but I’m going to go ahead and say it.

He made the right of play with the pass to wide open Danny end of game 5 BUT if he had taken and made the game winner, it would have been ICONIC and replayed over and over. He should have taken it. We all know Jimmy and the Heat (Duncan) would not be able to keep up with the Lakers in game 6, so even if Lebron missed he would have made up for it with the win. That shot along with the performance against Jimmy would have been a defining moment, but now that game 5 will be forgotten in the future.

[SideshowBob]

Watch on YouTube

[Greyhound]

Trying for CP3 is a great way to screw this thing up. He’s an old 6’0 point guard making $40 million a year. He’s injury prone. The Lakers don’t need a starting point guard. They have LeBron. They need 3&D role players. I’d only take CP3 on a vet minimum.

I agree.

Why gut your entire team and disrupt the chemistry that has developed for an aging 6’0” PG?

Everyone on the Lakers knows their role. The unit is battle tested and is bonded. I hope they don’t mess up a good thing trying to be cute.

I say maintain as best as possible and look to improve incrementally.

Priorities checklist:

1. Retain KCP
2. Keep Howard from GS
3. Retain Rondo
4. Retain Morris if it can be done at reasonable cost.
5 Target a regular season Rondo fill-in.
6. Pitch undecided option guys on running it back.

Yeah, there are only a handful of potentially available guys I would gut the roster for, and CP3 is definitely not one of them. He doesn’t fill a need, and he’s not even a guy you can count on being healthy when you need him the most. AD and LeBron just gave you 55.3 ppg on 65% TS throughout an entire postseason. They have enough top end offensive firepower between those two.

Agreed on KCP being the #1 priority. They need him back, and it seems very likely he does come back. How do you feel about Kuzma? He’s on a cheap contract next year which is very nice, but he seems like the most likely trade candidate.

I don’t mind Kuzma. If the team can upgrade, they should. If not, that’s ok. His better days are still ahead of him.

I would prefer that they offer him a deal (this summer) and attempt to hold onto him. They could then use him as sweetener in a potential mid season trade. If he does better in his role next season, keep him.

He is trying to make a name for himself and he is looking for his payday. Once all of that has been handled I think he will settle into a quality 6th man.

[Greyhound]

After CP3’s deal expires he would be great on a team friendly discount deal. If he is bought out, then acquired for cheap... great. Gutting the team to trade for his bloated contract...

Hell no.

I know that we are in the transaction crackhead portion of the off season, but continuity, chemistry are shared experience are not things to just overlook.

The Lakers are better off having quality role players (that can be somewhat replaced in the case of an injury) around their superstar duo. Leveraging all of these useful parts into an old “big fish” would be foolish. If he were to go down, the team would be seriously compromised.

Don’t screw up a good thing being greedy is my advice. I hope they prioritize maintaining chemistry (as best they can) over paper championing the off season

[kayess]

Watch on YouTube

You beat me to it lol.

Just one of the most surreal sporting experiences of my lifetime. There's just 2 super infuriating things about this series that will continue to haunt me

1) His best game came in game 6, not 7, and
2) That missed dunk at the end to punctuate the series

The block is obviously super iconic, and in the absolute pantheon of ATG clutch playoff moments, it's one of the few defensive plays (off the top of my head - "Havlicek steals the ball!", Bird's steal, Jordan's bucket -> steal -> bucket sequence in '98) that'll get played in highlight reels, and really the only block (unless you wanna include Hakeem stuffing Starks at the line over and over...), but you wish he'd have an iconic play on offense (could've been the pass to Green, but alas).

On that point: it's either super weird, or poetic, however you look at it. The most defining, indelible moments of his Finals have been about everything except his scoring (which of course he still did a ton of in all those series)

2012: The most indelible moment was OKC just being completely unable to guard a cramping, jumpshot-less LeBron, birthing the Mike Miller/bench attack game

2013: Obviously it's the Ray Allen jumpshot, completely overshadowing the herculean effort to get him there, and that last second jumpshot to ice game 7 is barely even talked about

2016: The block

2020: Nothing really standing out, just a balanced game where they couldn't miss and he just outlasted Jimmy Buckets

[nzahir]

You guys rather have Oladipo or Cp3?

Oladipo would cost DG, Kuzma, and our 1st
Cp3 would cost Dg, Kuzma, Avery, Mcgee, Cook, and our 1st

When you look at it though, only DG and Kuzma were useful or played in the playoffs anyways...

I wonder if we could do DG, Kuzma, Cook/Mcgee/Avery, our 1st, and 2-3 future 2nds for Oladipo and Mcdermott

KCP, Oladipo, Lebron, AD, Mcgee?/Boogie?/Gasol?
Rondo, Caruso, Mcdermott, Kieff?, Dwight?
Avery/Cook?, THT, vets

[LikeABosh]

Idk about Oladipo. He's had one awesome year, but maybe it was a fluke or maybe he just needs to get healthy

His catch-and-shoot % on 3's has been pretty good in Indiana (besides this past season) so I don't think Lakers would really lose any spacing

[Heej]

I'd rather get Oladipo because I'm extremely high on him and expect him to return to form eventually. His help defense was better than Danny Green back in 2018. Only SG I seen that made me feel like he's baby Wade as a pseudo-anchor

[zimpy27]

This is close to ideal IMO

PG: Caruso | Rondo | Cook
SG: Oladipo | Bradley | THT
SF: LeBron | KCP | Jackson
PF: A Davis | Markieff | Dudley
C : Thompson | Cousins | McGee

Green, Kuzma, pick 28 for Oladipo
Sign Tristan Thompson and Josh Jackson

[limbo]

Lol @ people negging about Paul's injury record while wanting to sign Oladipo... Paul has played 125% more games than Oladipo in the last two seasons...

[Heej]

This is close to ideal IMO

PG: Caruso | Rondo | Cook
SG: Oladipo | Bradley | THT
SF: LeBron | KCP | Jackson
PF: A Davis | Markieff | Dudley
C : Thompson | Cousins | McGee

Green, Kuzma, pick 28 for Oladipo
Sign Tristan Thompson and Josh Jackson

Why no Dwight brah?