It’s nice being able to trust the front office again.
Rob Pelinka said the Lakers are targeting tough, defensive-minded, selfless players in free agency. He echoed that the plan continues to be running it back with marginal upgrades.
— Jovan Buha (@jovanbuha) June 27, 2023
by Decent-Midnight-9307
33 Comments
“….with marginal upgrades” thank you. Our core 6-7 guys are clearly good enough. Fill a couple holes, bet on health, hope continuity and organic growth leads to improvement and that could swing things.
thats the smart way to do it. Rob knows ball. They need to let him cook tbh
Run it back. Decline both Bamba and Beasley’s contract to open up the full MLE and get a playoff caliber rotation player. Depending on the size of Rui and D’Lo’s contract, we may also have the BAE. Fill out the remaining 3-4 spots with vet mins.
Play the deadline again like we did last season. Move D’Lo if need be to address our weaknesses.
my question to this is who is included in the core? I would hope just Rui and Austin
Totally agree. Hope we keep Troy Brown Jr even though he struggled in the playoffs
But can we get a shooter?
Lol. While other teams got better or were already better…
This team needs a true C to move AD to PF.
Run it back?? We got swept man
The Lakers just don’t have the ability to upgrade more than perhaps one position. Unfortunately, it’s probably a decision between whether Dlo is closer to working or Mo Bamba is closer to working.
Would Mason Plumlee be a decent pick up?
Nah this team needs a center. Clint Capela or Jonas would be ideal.
Running it back is delusional. We lucked out that lbj and ad were even both healthy in playoffs and the other teams all played oddly bad. Be lucky to get the 8th seed next year.
Run it back? Getting swept by the nuggets lmao
Good enough to be a top 4 again but unless we address center and pg, we are not good enough to beat Denver.
This is exactly what I’m hoping for
It’s like what the championship teams that won after us.
They didn’t blow it up each time they lost. They kept their core and made marginal upgrades.
This team only had half a season together and reached the WCF.
Give them another chance to grow together and play together.
Plus they added some young hungry players that look like they can contribute here and there.
GOOD, THAT SHOULD BE THE PLAN ALL ALONG
you need to give a talented squad like the one we had last season time to really grow — and that includes bringing back DLo and DS
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run it back with a back up center and a full season under our belt and let’s see what we can do.
oh and no injuries
OMG SO SHOCKING!!!
Run it back? Yikes. May I remind you all that during the WCF against a tough team DLO could not score more than 10 points even once. On top of that, opposing teams targeted him and his bad defense in order to get their offense going. So he couldn’t score, couldn’t shoot and was a liability on defense.
Before you say “he was good in the games upto that point” DLO historically has done this Everytime he’s been in playoffs, averaging 38% from the field and 32% from 3 in his playoff career.
If we can sign him and get an opportunity to trade him to get better players for our stars, I would love to do that. I only want to run it back with Lebron AD Reaves and Rui. Vando for his cheap contract and defense…Dennis was good but he’s probably gone for a bigger pay. Otherwise, get us complimentary role players that can shoot and perform decently in the playoffs.
lol
Besides retaining our own players, getting a true center on this roster is priority number 1 imo.
If Dennis takes TPMLE, TBJ and Lonnie take their nonbird rights bumps, DLo 22.5, Rui 17.5, AR~11.5, keep Bamba- run it back minus Beasley plus the rookies
DLo/ Dennis/ JHS
AR/ Lonnie/ Max
Vando/ TBJ/ Lewis
LBJ/ Rui/ Swider
AD/ Bamba/ Castleton
Well under second apron (~176) I wonder if Vando starts or Rui. This build needs Rui’s size off the bench.
It’s the best move. They just made the WCF despite playing half a season with this core. If they can manage to sign a decent player or two like Josh Richardson, Plumlee (maybe Andre), Yuta, Jevon Carter (or Dennis/Reggie Jackson) then they should be pretty good moving forward. It will just be a matter of staying healthy at that point.
Brilliant. Run it back keeping assets which were negatives or non-existent during the playoff run. Waste another year of AD and Lebron. Fantastic
I have literally never seen a sub so afraid of growth and change. Just keep things the same and live in the past
LeBron being 39 and not willing to play 40 minutes a game. They really need a center. Running it back means AD playing out of position. Don’t think he wants to replay it back
This roster had one of the best defensive ratings in the league, and the depth to make up for injuries.
If Vando can get his corner 3 making up to 35%, Beasley starts hitting 3s like he used to, and we fix our terrible transition defense and offense, we’ll be a top 3 seed in the West!
We’ll see how it shakes out but I am not sure we are good enough from a talent stand point to beat Denver. Right now everything is just on paper which could end up being worthless but I think it’s 1.Denver and the Suns/Lakers are kind of battling for that second best team in the west. However that being said I do hope we bring back as much as we can and make small improvements, Lakers don’t need to swing for the fences like they did with Westbrook.
I don’t think we should make too many changes. Continuity is important. We just really need a defensive point guard because last year Russell was completely exposed by Jamal Murray. I will say that D’Angelo played really good against the Warriors, but he was outmatched physically against the Nuggets.
Marginal? We need major upgrades. Marginal aint gonna get it done.
I’m not confident that the end of the season wasn’t fools gold. A lot of teams were already resting players and a lot of our wins were due to being more healthy than the other team, and we had one of the easiest schedules in the league down the stretch. Of course, I could be full of shit.
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