How the Lakers Fell Apart. (P. 2)

On paper it looks good to have Paul and Kobe in the same backcourt but they're both ball dominant guards. That pairing in my opinion wouldn't have been a slam dunk like everyone thinks. They would not have been able to afford any depth if they acquired a third max contract in Howard either.

"gemfow" No, that wasn't the downfall"

Yes.. it was... it caused the move to get Nash, and caused Dwight to say "yea this team is not good enough, I'm out!"

"We still had a playoff team after the nixed deal. The front office handled things terribly. Lamar was sulking because he was essentially traded, he was quickly dealt to Dallas. It went down from there"

Your making MY point not yours.. LOL... If CP3 goes through, we don't have to deal with the sulking Lamar, we don't have to then reach and go after nash so we have a PG for Kobe's final couple years... all goes back to the CP3 trade.

"In all honesty the lakers should have blown up the team after they were destroyed by Dallas in the playoffs"

You fail to see they WOULD'NT have been destroyed by Dallas if the CP3 trade goes through, we get Dwight, a Kobe, Dwight, CP3 and Metta team would have contended for rings.. and we still would have Kobe, Dwight and CP3 to build around, and Dwight and CP3 after Kobe's done.

"The downfall of the lakers IMO is when they started going into panic mode after the Paul trade that was vetoed"

LOL.. EXACTLY MY POINT.. LOL... Derrrrr. dude, your simply not too bright.

.

Yes.. it was... it caused the move to get Nash, and caused Dwight to say "yea this team is not good enough, I'm out!"

"We still had a playoff team after the nixed deal. The front office handled things terribly. Lamar was sulking because he was essentially traded, he was quickly dealt to Dallas. It went down from there"

Your making MY point not yours.. LOL... If CP3 goes through, we don't have to deal with the sulking Lamar, we don't have to then reach and go after nash so we have a PG for Kobe's final couple years... all goes back to the CP3 trade.

""In all honesty the lakers should have blown up the team after they were destroyed by Dallas in the playoffs"

You fail to see they WOULD'NT have been destroyed by Dallas if the CP3 trade goes through, we get Dwight, a Kobe, Dwight, CP3 and Metta team would have contended for rings.. and we still would have Kobe, Dwight and CP3 to build around, and Dwight and CP3 after Kobe's done.

LOL.. EXACTLY MY POINT.. LOL... Derrrrr. dude, your simply not too bright.

Chris Paul averages 10 assist per game, MORE than ANY guard in the LEAGUE! He's a PLAYMAKING Guard, not a ball "dominant" guard... dude, just stop you obviously have no clue about the game of basketball and those who play the game. A PG that is the best assist guard in the NBA get's everyone involved, and would make any team better... including one with Kobe Bryant.

This Lakers team is underrated. I've seen the other franchise's rosters and they are not that great as stated on paper accept for a few. I believe this Lakers' team is the dark horse for the upcoming season. They will make the playoffs probably 6-8th seed and will upset a team in PO.

For those whom have been honest in their critique of the Lakers, it will come as no surprise that S.I. is seeing the same picture.

"Considering L.A. had been selling its fans on the power of its 2015 cap space since Dwight Howard's departure, that haul looks like a "Make it up as you go along" disaster that has simultaneously created positional log jams and giant holes."

This has been my issue since Pau was not traded and since Bynum was traded. Cluelessness has swept over Lakerland... 10 independent details do not magically add up to a cohesive whole. Think of a cake recipe. If you decide to add ketchup, cuz ketchup takes good, and pepper, because it's a versatile spice and cucumbers because they are very healthy for you, the cake will taste like crap.

http://www.si.com/2014/07/25/nba-offseason-losers-lakers-pacers-kings

Chris Paul IS a ball dominant guard, that's a fact. How many assists he gets doesn't change that, in fact, it enforces it. Chris Paul needs the ball in his hands a large amount of the time to make things happen. He didn't say he was a scoring guard, or whatever. He said "ball dominant" which is accurate.

Though it really doesn't matter, because at the time Kobe had stated himself that he wanted someone else who could take over some of the ball handling responsibility. If I recall correctly, Kobe did take a step back on ball handling at the beginning of the season when Nash was brought in. He let Nash do a lot of the ball handling, it just wasn't working out very well, and then Nash went out with that shin injury or whatever. So they reverted back to Kobe being the primary ball handler. So Kobe would have likely been totally fine letting Chris Paul handle the ball.

I can't deny that the CP3 slap-in-the-face was devastating. The timing was terrible and that was the major downfall. The Lakers front office obviously put in a LOT of work on that deal. Beyond the player acquisition, it was a very smart financial adjustment considering the pending CBA. Keep in mind that at the time I believe the CP3 acquisition was probably more about featuring Bynum in the future than it was about complementing Kobe. Paul would have spread the wealth, despite the presence of two ball-dominant players.

Under normal circumstances the deal would have gone through without a hitch. But being the blockbuster deal right after CBA negotiations was not going to fly. Maybe they should have predicted that and adjusted their approach, but it also may have been out of their own control. The other two clubs (NOH & HOU) were ready to move forward with the domino effects of the deal too. It was a pretty exciting deal for a lot of clubs.

But, I happen to think the biggest downfall of the organization was dissing so much winning history, crapping all over Phil Jackson and team continuity in the hiring of Mike Brown. Even if Brian Shaw didn't make a huge splash as a coach it would have at least kept some continuity in the franchise. I have no doubt that Mike Brown is a good guy, but the hire was a major fumble and started the ball rolling downhill pretty fast. Out of the three candidates for the coaching position, they chose the worst fit for the organization. Considering how much of a hurdle it was to start up a team from scratch after the lockout, the hard transition should have been predicted, and avoided.

Whatever, Kobe needs a guard who can facilitate, score, and take over for him, he's lost a huge step.

Yet again you show how much you lack any sort of non-linear thinking at all. Once again you try to attack my thinking but only come off sounding ridiculous. If you don't agree then you don't agree but you like to try to attack and say someone's comments are dumb or they have no clue about the game. I suggest you chill out because it really doesn't reflect well on you when you try to say someone has no clue but then everyone sees that you're actually guilty of having no idea what ball-dominant means. How can your response be whatever when another poster mentions that Paul is actually ball dominant? Sometimes wisdom requires taking a look and taking in things that other people have to say.

Now to address what you said. I'll just let you ponder some questions

1. How would Paul get others involved if the ball isn't in his hands?

2. Do you know what ball-dominant actually means?

Here is an article about Doc Rivers convincing Chris Paul to be less ball dominant.

http://www.slamonline.com/nba/doc-rivers-convinced-chris-paul-become-less-ball-dominant/

We will all disagree at some point in time on a discussion forum but try to educate instead of attack. My purpose of putting that link on there is for you to realize Paul has been a ball-dominant pg for a long while, a lot of great point guards are. Ball dominant-doesn't mean you're selfish and shoot all the time.

You clearly have strong opinions but I do as well which plenty have seen on this site it I will start returning your types of posts in kind.

I somewhat disagree with that. I think Mitch's plan was to get Howard after the acquisition of Paul. This is something that was not a well-kept secret and also Dan Gilbert alluded to it in his letter to David Stern. Mitch made the choice of acquiring Howard instead by walking away from the Paul negotiations. I think most people knew it would take Bynum and possibly a pick or two to somehow get Howard and it did. That Gilbert letter annoys me because he complained but now he's trying to put together his own super-team withLove, Lebron and Irving.

Even though Kobe was willing to relinquish ball handling to someone he trusts like a Nash or Paul, it still usually comes down to when Kobe looks to score he will hold it at the triple-threat position or he will wave for the ball. It would have been interesting to see if a balance would have been achieved between Paul and Kobe's ball dominant ways with different philosophies of playmaking vs scoring. I've heard Kobe talk about playmaking being Nash's job when Nash first arrived which meant Kobe would concentrate on scoring.

You still can't look past the trade veto as the downfall. The one trade veto is not the reason for the Lakers downfall IMO. Every move can be traced back to who? The FO. They weren't good trades to begin with because they didn't address weaknesses, instead they tried to add stars. It's sad that we have a FO who is star-struck. The downfall was what the FO did afterwards. The FO' stupid moves were the downfall of the Lakers. There were no excuses for them to trade Lamar for absolutely nothing because LA still had their same playoff team from the previous season but ousting Lamar for a trade exception left them worse off than they were before. No one put a gun to their head and said they needed to trade Lamar for nothing, that they should hold on to players beyond their expiration date. Essentially, bad decisions can't be blamed on the veto of one trade which is what people like yourself want to do. I've been there, done that and bought the tee shirt where I've somewhat crossed the lines on this site and that was just as recently as the beginning of last season. I found myself pretty upset due to the FO but usually my posts are quite reactionary in nature if someone responds to me a certain way. I'm trying to refrain from doing that. So all I ask is that you sort of chill out on these types of posts towards any member on this site. Due to the last line of your post which can be considered a personal attack I'm going to give you a freebie since it's not my style to give out negative reps. Here is an excerpt....

You're absolutely right I said same thing on here or Facebook forgot lol but they're gonna be 5 or 6th seed and I guarantee they will upset someone. The clippers are a mess because of the Sterling stuff. Who's to say it will be settled before November?....

Love for Wiggins + Bennet + protected top 10 pick

where are all these people who got crazy for the "unfair" Gasol + Odom for Paul trade?????????

eh i didn't mention them because i didn't really feel threatened by them. however, if any of the 2, id say pelicans.. but gallanari and mcgee lawson isn't that scary.. plus what bout their bench? look how strong our bench could potentially be. even if boozer starts, nash/clarkson,henry,johnson,randle,davis/sacre(who i think is gunna have his breakout season).. way better than both of their benches on paper.. but nash has to stay healthy. in my opinion, only way for nash to be healthy is for him to take bench role. plus it gives him that P.C capability as well.

I am kinda sick of this excuse. Even Magic Johnson said he would have continued to negotiate with Stern and worked out something. You just don't walk away from the table like a spoiled rich kid...come to think of it, Jimbo IS a spoiled rich kid. Believe me, Dr. Buss would have wined and dined Stern -- maybe even a threat of a lawsuit (carrot and stick approach) and got the deal done.

It is this spoiled brat approach that got the Lakers NOTHING for LO, D12 and Pau.

Excuses are for losers. And other than being a great inheritor, Jim Buss is a loser.

Well said!

It's easy for Magic or you or anyone of us to say Jim Buss should have done X,Y,Z to get the deal done. Who's to say Stern's mind wasn't made up? Maybe he flat out told Jim not to even bother. Maybe Jim did do x,y,z. Maybe he did try to wine and dine Stern and the dictator just shot him down.

Have you done sales before? Or any business transaction? If a car sales man was trying to sell you a car you did not want, would any amount of wining and dining change your mind? If the other party just is not interested in doing the deal, no amount of wining and dining will convince them to change their mind. And did you forget that they did have a time frame?

I'm not defending Jim Buss or anything --he is a loser-- I'm just tired of spoiled fans saying if they done this, this, and that, the deal would have gotten done. I'm pretty sure it's just not that simple.

That person is Dan Gilbert and it is only "unfair" if it is the Lakers. If it is the Cavs then it is just the little guys getting a fair shake.

Well said, we barely see the tip of the iceberg of what goes on in deals/trades etc.

On a side note as much as I respect magic this is the same Magic that quit on the lakers when he was coach announcing he was done at the end of the season with 5 games still to play. The lakers proceeded to lose the next 5 games. I wish he would be a little less public with some of the things he comes out with.

One difference. The Buss family was responsible for much of David Stern's success. You might not be able to "twist the arm" of a reluctant buyer -- but if the buyer owes you a big part of his success -- different dynamic. Jim Buss, to this observer, does not know how to overcome "objections" in a fair and prolonged negotiation. He just takes his ball and goes home.

Stern strikes me as the kind of person who wouldn't care about that. Jim probably did remind him and stern probably said something along these lines: "Oh I owe you for my....

Yeah, I share your sentiment about Magic. I hope he doesn't but I wonder how fast he starts throwing coach Scott under the bus when things are going sour. I think I would lose all respect for Magic if he that.

This is a lot of speculation on both of our parts. The only thing we know FOR SURE is that the Clippers kept on negotiating and Jim Buss took his billionaire's ball and went home. Maybe there wasn't anything he could have done; maybe Stern had it in for the Lakers. We will likely never know.

But based on Jim's juvenile negotiating reactions -- getting rid of LO for nothing in a fit of pique, saying beforehand that "we will not do a sign and trade" when D12 threatened to walk and his getting nothing for Pau leads me to believe that he blew it.

Jimbo never gave it a shot. That sure looked like "spoiled rich brat negotiating 2.0" to me.

Gemfow, as always man love reading your posts because you step outside the box and think about the bigger picture. I tried making this exact point myself a while back and got immediately attacked for it. I think it stems from the nature of being a fan. I have noticed that fans across all teams have a tendency to blame other factors for their losses rather than looking inward and facing what they did wrong.

Even Clippers fans are guilty of that as well. Browse Clippers Topbuzz and you will see 99% of the members there blame the referees for their ouster against the Thunder. But in reality what the refs did was minimal. Bonehead plays by CP3 and an inability to hold leads led to that ouster.

Gemfow

Agree with a lot of things you've said in your posts, but the Lakers didn't trade LO for nothing. They go a protected 1st Rd pick for him, which they sent to Houston along with fish, to get hill.

You're right, they received the trade exception and a first rounder but when you trade a key player from a playoff team and don't replace him then that's what I meant by nothing. That pretty much hurt the Lakers chance at going deep into the playoffs, Lamar meant a lot to the team but emotionally he was done after he was essentially dealt.

I mean really to get Lamar Odom for a trade exception -- and I don't even know what that is -- so we turned nothing into a great player. - Dirk Nowitzki after hearing they acquired Odom.

On a vet team competing if you're going to trade a guy then you want someone in return to fill the void.

Traded Player Exception[edit]

If a team trades away a player with a higher salary than the player they acquire in return (the deal hereafter referred to as "Trade #1"), they receive a Traded Player Exception, also known as a "Trade Exception". Teams with a trade exception have up to a year in which they can acquire more salary in other trades (Trade #2, #3, etc.) than they send away, as long as the gulf in salaries for Trade #2, #3, etc. are less than or equal to the difference in salary for Trade #1. This exception is particularly useful when teams trade draft picks directly for a player; since draft picks have no salary value, often the only way to get salaries to match is to use a trade exception, which allows trades to be made despite unbalanced salaries. It is also useful to compensate teams for losing free agents, as they can do a sign and trade of that free agent to acquire a trade exception that can be used later. Note this exception is for single player trades only, though additional cash and draft picks can be part of the trade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_salary_cap#Traded_Player_Exception

Placing blame is no answer injuries and discontent along with some poor decisions contributed to the uneventful season

Too any Lakers fans want to blame that Stern veto on all our problems and I consider that crazy. There was no guarantee that a tandem of Chris Paul and Kobe would have made us this powergouse for ages to come. Kobe likes the ball in his hands way too much for a pg to actually play the pg position. The FO has had disregard for the draft picks, they wouldn't move guys to get younger, bad free agent signings, and so on but people just want t point the finger at Stern for the veto which I just can't agree on.

Lol, thanks for the definition. I know what a trade exception is. That was a quote I put down by Nowitzki who said he doesn't even know what that is.

LOL yeah now i re-read it I see it lol

Hey Gem, Sorry I didn't see this comment way back. I'm slow to catch up with LTB these days.

As for your point about Bynum vs. Howard, that kind of redirects my point. Either way (Bynum or Howard) I believe the Lakers were looking to the future with the CP3 deal both by restructuring the team's salary and contemplating the eventual departure of Kobe -- and featuring younger players. I don't doubt at all that they were hoping to get Howard with the CP3 "bait" just as you mentioned. It was pretty clear. But as it turned out, the Lakers spent a ton of time just trying to adjust to the restrictions in the new CBA. The CP3 deal would have alleviated a lot of that problem immediately. The impact wasn't just about getting or not getting Paul.

And regardless, my point above was that the biggest downfall in their decision making was abandoning the hard-earned continuity in the organization by passing over Shaw and going for Mike Brown in a summer when they knew the lockout might extend well into the season. I thought it was a stupid move at the time, and I still do. That has very little to do with any opinions of Mike Brown either as a person or a coach. It's just that they had a better option right in front of them considering the circumstances of the CBA negotiations. If I had to guess, it wasn't so much that they didn't like Shaw, it was that Jim Buss wanted to take a huge dump on his sister's boyfriend really bad.