[SHAMS] *TRADE DONE* Wizards Trade Westbrook, '24 and '28 2nd for Kuzma, KCP, Harrell and Pick 22...

[BNM]

There are shooters everywhere in the NBA at this point.

Well, almost everywhere...

[Lala870]

Lakers clearly won the deal.

People love to **** on Westbrook, but he's still a legit star and difference maker.

Fit will be the major issue for the Lakers, but they'll figure it out.

Westbrook is still a beast.

Absolutely.

For some reason people lose all objectivity when it comes to the Lakers. Garbage players they trade turn into superstars (like now KCP is an amazing player ) and superstars are now borderline D-League players like Westbrook

I guess people will see once LA winds up winning the chip again with Westbrook averaging insane numbers

At least silver gave the bucks a concession title to keep the fans suckered in. Im pretty sure every other team in the league could have offered a better trade package for Westbrook

[DroseReturnChi]

Another way to look at this... In a scenario where AD slides to the 5 like has been discussed in relation to this trade, the Lakers had 3 key investments they needed to make in order to get better:

1. Shooters
2. A guy who could facilitate at a high rate and wasn't afraid to tell LeBron to pound sand when appropriate... CP3? Wall? Something like that
3. A guy who could create his own shot playing off AD and LeBron

With Westbrook, they take care of 2 and 3, while adding toughness... Arguably, the 2 hardest deficits to fill on the list. There are shooters everywhere in the NBA at this point.

On top of that, we get rid of Kuz and KCP, while eliminating the possibility we bring in CP3 and endure all the banana boat references...

Yes, we still need shooters, but if AD slides to the 5, we can add shooters at 2 positions now...

creators are a premium in this nba. you have lowry going for 30 and lonzo for 25 and westbrook for 44 is very cheap considering your disposing all the trash you dont need for free and only 2 yrs you can retire him for vet min as a laker.

shooters im not worried at all easiest to get. multiple ring chasers that are worth MLE will join prove it 1 yr deal to raise their stock in the finals. carmleo, austin rivers, reddick, temple absolutely littered.

[JB2]

Sign and trade THT, Gasol and a future 2nd for Hield sounds about right to me. Then sign McDermott to the MLE and a bunch of veteran role players.

G - Westbrook/role player
G - Hield/Snell
F - McDermott/McKinnie
F - James/role player
C - Davis/Whiteside

Sure I can easily get behind this but I think most THT could be offered from LA is $10.4M. But THT at $10.4 + Gasol and McKinnie gets you close.. I think.

[Ben-N1ce]

In a nutshell, good move for the regular season, bad move for the playoffs.

The trio of LeBron, AD and Russ will give the Lakers enough firepower to win a lot of regular season games, even while taking turns load managing. That should result in more regular season wins, a higher seed and a weaker first round opponent.

The post season is where it will all fall apart. Russ has been absolutely terrible in the playoffs going all the way back to the collapse against GSW in 2016. Since that time, he has been flat out awful (.479 TS%, 4.7 TOV/G) and his teams have grossly underachieved (8 - 24).

It's not like he hasn't had help. Other than 2017, after KD left, Russ has always had at least one all star teammate. In HOU, he was paired with a perineal MVP candidate in Harden and his last year in OKC, PG13 was a top 3 MVP candidate. The one common denominator has been Russ, his lack of shooting range, poor shot selection and decision making and plethora of unforced TOVs.

He has to be be easiest player in the entire league to game plan for in a playoff series. He had a horrible series against POR in 2019. He was literally shut down by Damian Lillard and Enes Kanter. If you can't feast on those guys, you are the definition of an offensive liability.

In an era when shooting and spacing are crucial to winning, Russ lacks what it takes to win. He's never been a good (or even average) shooter, and he keeps getting worse every year - in the playoffs where it matters most.

Here's his playoff TS% for his last seven post seasons:

2014 = .539
2016 = .515
2017 = .511
2018 = .493
2019 = .466
2020 = .464
2021 = .462

Every one of those numbers are below league average, and you will notice his shooting has gotten worse every single year. In a league where shooting and floor spacing are vital to success, that is a distressing trend for a ball dominant player who, after 13 seasons in the league, has still not learned when NOT to call his own number - especially when paired with MUCH more efficient scoring teammates.

His TS was.462 shooting 33% against the 76ers?

[BNM]

For some reason people lose all objectivity when it comes to the Lakers. Garbage players they trade turn into superstars (like now KCP is an amazing player ) and superstars are now borderline D-League players like Westbrook

shooters im not worried at all easiest to get. multiple ring chasers that are worth MLE will join prove it 1 yr deal to raise their stock in the finals. carmleo, austin rivers, reddick, temple absolutely littered.

Seems like it works both ways. Back when he was out of the league for over a year prior to being picked up by POR, we had a 50+ page thread on how "washed" Melo was. Now, three years later, he's suddenly a key piece to an NBA championship.

[BNM]

In a nutshell, good move for the regular season, bad move for the playoffs.

The trio of LeBron, AD and Russ will give the Lakers enough firepower to win a lot of regular season games, even while taking turns load managing. That should result in more regular season wins, a higher seed and a weaker first round opponent.

The post season is where it will all fall apart. Russ has been absolutely terrible in the playoffs going all the way back to the collapse against GSW in 2016. Since that time, he has been flat out awful (.479 TS%, 4.7 TOV/G) and his teams have grossly underachieved (8 - 24).

It's not like he hasn't had help. Other than 2017, after KD left, Russ has always had at least one all star teammate. In HOU, he was paired with a perineal MVP candidate in Harden and his last year in OKC, PG13 was a top 3 MVP candidate. The one common denominator has been Russ, his lack of shooting range, poor shot selection and decision making and plethora of unforced TOVs.

He has to be be easiest player in the entire league to game plan for in a playoff series. He had a horrible series against POR in 2019. He was literally shut down by Damian Lillard and Enes Kanter. If you can't feast on those guys, you are the definition of an offensive liability.

In an era when shooting and spacing are crucial to winning, Russ lacks what it takes to win. He's never been a good (or even average) shooter, and he keeps getting worse every year - in the playoffs where it matters most.

Here's his playoff TS% for his last seven post seasons:

2014 = .539
2016 = .515
2017 = .511
2018 = .493
2019 = .466
2020 = .464
2021 = .462

Every one of those numbers are below league average, and you will notice his shooting has gotten worse every single year. In a league where shooting and floor spacing are vital to success, that is a distressing trend for a ball dominant player who, after 13 seasons in the league, has still not learned when NOT to call his own number - especially when paired with MUCH more efficient scoring teammates.

His TS was.462 shooting 33% against the 76ers?

Yes, .462 TS% on .333 FG%, .250 3FG% and .791 FT%. His FT% on 8.6 FT/G helped "boost" his TS%, but .462 TS% is still flat out horrific for anyone in today's NBA - even worse for a ball dominant PG.

[queridiculo]

His TS was.462 shooting 33% against the 76ers?

Yeah, but did you bother to see the lineups the Wizards were trotting out?

The 76ers have played formidable defense all year long and it's not that difficult to devise schemes to take away certain things when you can key on one or two players.

With Lebron and Davis the Lakers have two formidable scoring options defenses have to respect, won't be quite as easy to bottle up Westbrook when he's playing alongside those two.

[BNM]

His TS was.462 shooting 33% against the 76ers?

Yeah, but did you bother to see the lineups the Wizards were trotting out?

The 76ers have played formidable defense all year long and it's not that difficult to devise schemes to take away certain things when you can key on one or two players.

With Lebron and Davis the Lakers have two formidable scoring options defenses have to respect, won't be quite as easy to bottle up Westbrook when he's playing alongside those two.

Oh please, not the "it's his teammate's fault Russ can't shoot" excuse. If that was a single, isolated, statistical outlier, you might have a point, but it's not. It's part of a career-long pattern.

The year before, in HOU when paired with Harden, HOU doubled down on their small ball philosophy so they could surround Russ with four 3-point shooters. His playoff TS% = .464.

Against POR, paired with Paul George and defended by Damian Lillard, his TS% was .466. In that series, the only one between Russ and the basket, when running the high pick and roll, or beating Lillard off the dribble was Enes "Can't Play" Kanter. Not exactly a couple of all NBA defenders there. All Kanter had to do was sag back in the paint and dare Russ to shoot. Russ may be the only PG in NBA history that couldn't play Kanter off the court in a playoff series.

So, no need to "bottle up" Russ, just sag off him and dare him to shoot - which he will do and he will do poorly. It doesn't really matter who his teammates are, KD, Harden, PG13, etc. Russ is who he is. His TS% has been below .500 four post seasons in a row, and below .470 for the last three. It wasn't just his WAS teammates, or PHI's defense. It is, was, and will always be his inability to shoot. All those regular season triple doubles mean little if you can't shoot in the post season when it matters.

[Ballerhogger]

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[Doug_12]

Another way to look at this... In a scenario where AD slides to the 5 like has been discussed in relation to this trade, the Lakers had 3 key investments they needed to make in order to get better:

1. Shooters
2. A guy who could facilitate at a high rate and wasn't afraid to tell LeBron to pound sand when appropriate... CP3? Wall? Something like that
3. A guy who could create his own shot playing off AD and LeBron

With Westbrook, they take care of 2 and 3, while adding toughness... Arguably, the 2 hardest deficits to fill on the list. There are shooters everywhere in the NBA at this point.

On top of that, we get rid of Kuz and KCP, while eliminating the possibility we bring in CP3 and endure all the banana boat references...

Yes, we still need shooters, but if AD slides to the 5, we can add shooters at 2 positions now...

I don't see this as positively as you do:
-Westbrook maybe solves 2/b (namely he isn't afraid to tell anything to Lebron), but I don't see this as a great advantage.
-2/a (someone who can facilitate): I don't see it. The Rockets, for example, was utterly terrible when he was on the court leading their offense (and Harden was sitting).
-3:he can create his own, but he cannot play off of Lebron and AD. Westbrook playing off-ball is like Rondo doing it.
-1:definitely no

And w/ KCP gone we now need another 3&D guy. Well, we actually don't have any...

[chrismikayla]

Lakers fans should be ecstatic do get rid of Kuzma and his antics. I'm not sure he ever would have reached his potential in Los Angeles whatever that may be. In a strange way he seemed to have peaked his rookie year.

[Young Stapler]

Welcome to the Lakers Russ!

[Goomba3666]

If Kuzma pushed Lebron on National T.V to play defense as a damn near teenager, there's no telling what the ceiling is for the disrespect from Westbrook. No nights off for Lebron on defense if he's on the court.

This should be entertaining.

[Hero]

I get when LeBron is resting but when he is on the floor? Is Russ actually gonna give up the ball. Then what? How's spacing gonna work with him?

Not sure about this.

[Yeggo Poleggo]

They met up and and agreed to run Russ at the 1 and Bron at the 4 with Davis finally playing center.

If we pick up the right vets, especially for shooting, expect this team to start strong right out the gate.

[Naero]

Lakers in desperation mode.

You knew that as soon as Harden joined the Nets, other title-contenders would try making splashes like this in the off-season.

It's definitely a risky move, but the Lakers plainly needed more talent to vie with Brooklyn. With LeBron approaching his twilight years, the Lakers couldn't afford to wait out other superteams like the Nets; they needed to make win-now moves, and Westbrook—as misfitting as he might be—was the best commodity available.

More like a lose-now move. This simply can't work.

That remains to be seen. He's definitely a questionable fit, but it's a better direction than staying in limbo with Kuzma, KCP, and Harrell. That supporting cast simply wouldn't cut it against the Nets.

We'll just need to see what other moves they can, especially for sharpshooters like Buddy Hield. Even then, it's easy to overstate the spacing issues; both the Lakers and Bucks won the last-two championships with subaverage three-point-shooting.

Either way, LeBron- and Lakers-haters should try hedging their skepticism about this; otherwise, if the Lakers win it all, the revisionism will sound hilarious.

[lautreamont]

terrible trade for the lakers

Lakers gave up role players who underachieved for them in exchange an elite top 1% athlete that averages a triple double and can defend. It might not lead to a championship but it's not terrible.

[SleepingDragon]

So what are the Lakers options with Schroder at this point, can he be sign and traded or is that impossible at this point?

They can certainly sign and trade but he doesn’t have to play ball, he can just sign with Chicago or New York outright.

If Schroder wants close to the 4/84m the Lakers offered previously, his best bet is S&T.

No team preserve 20m in their cap space just to accommodate him.

[Optms]

Only injuries can stop this train.

Maybe the Nets big 3, too, of course. RIP for everyone else.