O.C. Register: In the spirit of the season, let’s send some holiday cheer to someone who has earned it — someone who spent much of 2007 getting hammered, and not in the fun, eggnog way.
We’re speaking of Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak, whom Lakers Nation fired about a thousand times in ‘07 but Lakers management never did.
Based on the way this season has started — with the Lakers at 18-10 and the GM’s biggest rebuilding block, Andrew Bynum, literally in the center of it all — keeping Kupchak appears to have been the right move.
Hindsight is just wonderful that way.
When everyone from Kobe to Jack thought the Lakers should ship Bynum to New Jersey for quick-fix Jason Kidd, Kupchak took the long view and held firm. Now he has another slam-dunking, shot-blocking big man to pair with Bryant (although Bynum mustn’t become satisifed with his recent success and still must prove he can be a double-double threat for 82 regular-season games and multiple playoff series).
Kupchak: I’m saying [Bynum] has not been cleared
Is Mitch Kupchak Really to Blame?
Kupchak, Lakers haven’t done much this summer
Kupchak trying to upgrade Lakers
Kupchak runner-up as NBA’s top executive
When we win a CHAMPIONSHIP with Kobe and Bynum AVG. 25 pts each, then i will BOW to him
I agreed. This team is doing well, but still there is a long road for a championship. Until them I have many reservation regarding Cupcake.
Bring Artest now!
Make sure KB retires as a Laker and then, I will personally drive to your house or place of business and beg for your forgiveness. Until that time, you’re on thin ice and so is Dr. Buss.
I don’t care what Kobe has said or done. He may be a d.i.c.k off the court but he’s a stud on the court. This is business. Act like men and stop all this none sense about hurt feelings and lies.
This isn’t Lifetime for men, is it?
just imagine what the lineup would have been had he not traded Butler for Brown.
Kobe, Butler, Odom, Ariza, Bynum, Fisher and company.
Wow!!!!!!!!!!
You guys have to admit, the SOB can draft. Look at his picks, Bynum, Farmar, Crit, Turiaf (who was a steal in the second round). I mean even Walton has his good days.
Finally, to the guys who want Artest. What is yet another small forward going to bring to the Lakers? I mean how many small forwards can one team have? Let’s see Ariza, Walton, Radman (at 6′10, he’s still a small forward). Even if you sacrifice LO for Artest, you’d be sacrificing LO who is a better rebounder than Artest (if you didn’t know the Lakers are in the top 5 in rebounds) and a lot of that is due to LO (whether you guys like him or not). Furthermore Sacramento is NOT going to trade Artest to the Lakers. I mean if that’s the case, let’s just trade Kobe to Phoenix. Wake up from the wet dream. The only way Artest comes to the here is if he opts out of his contract and the end of this year and signs with the Lakers. Sac is NOT trading him to the Lakers.
Agreed^ Completely.
All in all Fu*K Artest.
He’s not the piece were missing.
Hell NO it is not time to Praise Him!!! Wait til we Win A Championship. Right now it is time for EVERY LAKER FAN WHO DOUBTED HIM TO BEG FOR FORGIVENESS!!! And to say Say I AM SORRY!!! I will not play GM again. I am glad you didn’t trade your future franchise center along with Odom for Oneil. I am glad you didn’t give into kobe’s wants and traded Bynum for Kidd. I am also glad you drafted Farmar, a hot young guard who makes our 2nd unit run, and drafted Turiaf in the second round who gives us energy and a defensive presence. Thank you for getting Ariza for Cook. You know how to turn a bad pick into something good. There is another pick that others don’t recognize but will soon thank you for and that is Crittenton. Some presents have to be opened later. Thank you for not losing your cool when your star player disses you in public and not to let that affect your judgement. Also for not letting Buss trade kobe for second rate players and for not letting kobe trade himself despite himself. lol All the while you have given a face of respectability when the franchise was being trashed and disrespected in public. Sure you have made mistakes..all GM’s do and if anyone can name one then that gm must have just been hired because he doesn’t exist. kwame for butler but that was understandable as trying to find a big in this league is the hardest thing to do. But you did that three years ago with Bynum.
So every laker fan who doubted you should reexamine there own judgement and put alittle more trust in yours. Even now has future trade speculation seems to be running rampant!!!! Maybe those trade speculators should ask one question… What would Mitch do???? lol
NOw that i think of it, it would be pretty hard to apologize to the guy, because he did LIE to KOBE, but then again , if he didnt ….he probably wouldnt be in a laker uniform today.
No praise from me for Kupcake. Trading Caron Butler for Kwame Brown-stain was a HUGE BLUNDER. The whole Shaq situation was totally botched. Let’s see if we can at least win a playoff series this year and that Kobe finishes his career with the Lakers.
No. The blunders he has made outweigh the success now. He inherited a dynasty and botched it. Now he’s trying to make up for that.
This coming from a guy willing to trade Bynum and our young talent like farmar or critt for JO. You should be thanking Mitch and glad your not the GM.
Praise Kupchak? are u kidding me?
Lets see how many great players didn’t he pick when he chose cook?
lets not forget the kwame trade for caron butler. one of the worst trades in history…
Remember he let fish go, shaq go, he was unable to keep kb happy.
AB4sure he was willing to let Bynum go for oneil just not odom too…
Also who signed vlad to a bad contract?
Who over paid walton for what he does bc he had one good year followed by a horrible playoff series?
To be fair he did do a couple of good things, he traded cook for ariza and drafted farmar, critt, and turiaf which all 4 i like.
But to praise kupchak is a joke. we havent even won anything yet with him. let him win a few like jerry west and then we will talk.
cupcake done some bad moves but we kept baby shaq and look at kidd now he cant turn the nets around and bynum is a double double machine
letting fish and shaq go??? there were reasons and you don’t want to get into that becuase you would lose that argument like before. You have wrong info because Bynum was NEVER OFFERED TO INDY in any trade. Odom was the one. Indy wanted both. Vlad is alittle overpaid i will give you that, but remember kobe “your idol” and PJ both wanted the lakers to go get Vlad. Don’t judge Walton too soon when starting last yr. he was in double figures and provided both reb. and assists and runs the triangle better than most lakers.
I agree we shouldn’t praise him, but those who wanted to trade Andrew “ship his ass out” Bynum” which includes you need to do some serious groveling…LOL
Also, if he kept kobe happy we would not have Bynum. Making Kobe happy is not what is best for the Lakers.
^ I DONT THANK THATS TRUE
Even though it’s really fun to be talking about other Lakers other than Kobe, it’s still VERY early to be anointing these kids. They are fun to watch and likeable dudes but lets win 50 or more games and at least get passed the first round and then and only then will i eat crow.
Praise for what?????? We still need a 2nd option star vet…
I think that we should start praising Kupchak when we actually win a championship with Bynum on our team, he is playing good but we need to win something to actually praise Kupchak.
Praise B*tch Kupchak?!?!?!
The city of LA hasn’t seen any gold trophys since 2002. I’ll praise him when we win one.
just like the first steps kobe took on the court, i knew Bynum was following the same path.. now tell me, WHYTF did the ZEN MASTER sit Bynum so much the first 2 seasons? I kno the Zen doesn’t play rookies much, but would Bynum have hurt our poor lakers with trash parker being our PG??? go figure… Bynum would probably be starting center in this years all star game if we didn’t pay too many millions of dollars to Zen Master… thank you James Worthy for finally noticing this Zen guy’s flaws… thank you James.
all hail mitch!!!!!!!!
Shawn I agree wholeheartedly!Keep24 is right also,make sure Kobe stays 4GOOD,The Pack Rules!!!
I wouldn’t go so far as to “praise” Kupchak, but the truth of the matter is, he has not done so bad considering all the circumstances he dealt with.
However, I would like to touch upon Phantom’s unelaborated post:
With regards to selecting Cook in the first round of the 2003 NBA draft. Come on, did anyone really think Leandro Barbosa was going to be a decent player (in actuality he’s super fast, can shoot the three, but is a terrible distributor as a point guard). Also, no one thought Josh Howard was going to be this good.
Yes, yes, we all know that Caron Butler for Kwame Brown trade backfired, but I remember why that trade went down. Caron was going into is final year on his contract. The Lakers were NOT going to resign him because they had Odom there to play the small forward position, which Caron also plays, and they needed a power forward, which is why they traded for Kwame Brown. Kwame was supposed to be the Lakers power forward, but unfortunately because Kwame can’t play that far from the rim, he couldn’t play the 4 spot, so they moved him to the center position, which is why he plays center now.
With regards to letting Fish go, Fish was offered more money by Golden St (a 6 year, $37M deal), the Lakers couldn’t match this.
As for trading away Shaq in the summer of 2004, you can thank boy wonder Kobe Bryant for this one. I’ve said time and time again, the Lakers traded Shaq so that they could resign Kobe Bryant. Kobe WAS NOT going to resign with the Lakers if the Lakers did not trade Shaq (remember Kobe was a free agent that summer of 2004 and was “tired of being a sidekick”, read Phil’s book). If addition, in the summer of 2005, Shaq would’ve been able to opt-out of his Laker contract, which he was going to do anyways because the Lakers did not want to pay him what he wanted ($30M/year). Knowing that they needed to resign Kobe immediately (he was close to leaving for the Clippers!), the Lakers traded Shaq and the very next day Kobe Bryant signed a 7 year deal with the Lakers. If the Lakers had kept Shaq, there is high probability, Kobe would’ve left the Lakers as a free agent in 2004 and then Shaq most likely would’ve opted out in 2005 leaving the Lakers both Kobe-less and Shaq-less (this is why the Lakers did not get much back for Shaq. Not to mention Shaq had a no-trade clause in his contract much like Kobe does now).
Kupchak did not want to trade both LO and Bynum for JO, which I completely agreed with. JO is NOT worth both Bynum and LO despite what some people said here over the summer.
Vlad’s contract is a bad contract, but both Kobe and Phil wanted him here because they needed a 3 point threat. When healthy Vlad is a good shooter. All last year he had a sprained ligament in his shooting hand and then he had his shoulder injury. At the beginning of this year, Vlad was shooting great, however, from what I understand he now has two sprained wrists which is why his shot attempts have dropped over the last 3 weeks.
Before, you rip apart a player or a GM, please get the facts right.
Robert. Drew wasn’t ready and he STILL has alot to learn. Phil did the RIGHT thing by sitting Drew and letting him learn. To borrow a line from THE WOLF lets not start sucking each other d**ks just yet, Drew is coming along but lets see how he finishes the season and plays in the playoffs.
I agree…Letting drew sit was good, the kid has alot of growing up to do..Along with his basketball sense…As far as praising Mitch not yet…There is alot of things that play in the role of being a GM….We only know what the public knows Also he works for Buss who I might say is the ultimate say in what goes on in LA….No prasies for mitch, Lets just hope are team contiues to improve….
Yes no praise but WHERE ARE THE APOLOGIES. FOR RIPPING KUPCHAK FOR NOT TRADING BYNUM!!! I gave many other reasons on an earlier post for this article and still I see no Apologies. There have been a few apologies on the shoutbox and I have only seen one by the ICE CREAM MAN. He is the only one who seems to be MAN ENOUGH to make a public apology. Funny how you guys can ridicule Kupchak and now that we see what he has done for the most part has been very good for the lakers you refuse to recognize his accomplishments. All I have to say to those who ridiculed him this past summer is if your big enough to criticize you should be big enough to Apologize for the Ranting and Raving at him.
I would like to mention ONE MORE TIME to everyone that NO ONE supported anything my dad did BEFORE the Lakers started rolling like 16lb bowling balls down the lanes of basketball. Once again, THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT!
Please save me your attitude. I wanted Barbosa (Harper fraking recommended him) for example. Would you like to have him? As I said, not replenishing the dynasty eras with these type of picks outweighs these positives.
After seeing Bynum’s body in preseason, I was immediately impressed. If I saw it earlier, I wouldn’t have even mentioned Bynum swap for JO. I never supported Bynum + Odom so don’t call me out for that.
Besides, a DPOY level JO would have helped this team too. JO isn’t up to par yet. He’s putting gradually putting up JO numbers and at higher clip in Dec. 18.9 points at .508 with 2.6 blocks to boot. He ain’t dead.
Still would trade Odom and pieces for him.
Thank you very much for reminding everyone that opinions based solely on lack of factual knowledge & the bias of emotions is a total waste. Once again, my father pardons the infantile fans of the Lakers. Have a nice weekend!
I never said you said Bynum + LO for for JO.. I said
“This coming from a guy willing to trade Bynum and our young talent like farmar or critt for JO. You should be thanking Mitch and glad your not the GM.
Please direct all of you apologies to Mitch. He is the one that deserves them.
And you continue to ignore the main point:
“The blunders he has made outweigh the success now. He inherited a dynasty and botched it. Now he’s trying to make up for that.”
You’re telling me not drafting the way he has these last 3 years (looking for athleticism and talent) for the past 4 years during the dynasty is enough for an apology?
Get off your high horse. Bynum took 3 years to get to where he has now. The Lakers HAD A DYNASTY. Are the Spurs still contending for the decade? Yes. That’s where we WERE suppose to be. This was suppose to be a dominant team for the decade like the 80s Lakers or the 90s Trulls.
I’m happy with Bynum’s development but even a Bynum + Farmar + Filler trade for JO right now isn’t a COMPLETE rip off! As I pointed out, he was recovering from knee surgery and had a slow start. Now he’s gradually putting back his regular numbers in Dec. You think he wouldn’t have impact on this team?
You make continually make it sound like trading Bynum for JO now would be a COMPLETE rip off. It wouldn’t. It’s not like trading away your promising young player like Butler for a bust like Kwame.
But it’s better to keep Bynum now BECAUSE of his development spurt. He’s RAPIDLY developing but let’s not forget here, he’s still not at Dwight level yet and doesn’t have enough consistent posts skills to be a 20/10 player yet like Duncan or JO every single night WITHOUT heavy reliance on his teammates. Yet.
I’m counting on his rapid development to get there.
And you expect me to apologize to Mitch for not properly handling a dynasty and then finally drafting right and it took 3 YEARS to see it BEGIN (not even in the middle) for it to blossom?
You must be fraking kidding me.
How about this?
A pat on a back for not trading Bynum for JO but a punch in the face for not drafting this way in the dynasty days and stupid trades like Butler + Atkins for Kwame which has been way worse than a package of Bynum for JO would have been. A student of Jerry West and it takes him 4 years to get drafting right and another few years to get trading right. (Samb for MO - Cook and Mo for Ariza)
Main point??? did u read what i posted on the 28th??? I answered most of your questions there, but you seem to ignore the facts of what Mitch has done. Keeping Bynum a franchise center more than makes up for the butler trade… you don’t realize what a center like Bynum does for a team. He changes EVERYTHING!!!!! Samb??? Is he starting for the pistons???? First of all, your not thinking right. They traded the 2nd round pic for MO, they didn’t trade Samb. the pistons picked samb.
The Lakers Dynasty was Cut in Half??? Remember the feud??? Are you freaking kidding me??? After the Detroit series, kobe was a FA. They had to salvage what they could. if shaq stayed kobe is gone. Again your thinking is wrong and illogical. And totally unfair. Stop looking for perfection. Tell me one Gm that hasn’t made a bad trade or bad draft pic. And that gm has been around more than 2 years.
YOu said, “I’m happy with Bynum’s development but even a Bynum + Farmar + Filler trade for JO right now isn’t a COMPLETE rip off”
Yes it would be a rip off. Again you don’t know the value of a true center. A true center makes the game much easier for everyone.
btw kwame is not a bust but he is a serviceable center. Even last night, his post defense is better than Bynum’s and the lakers need that defense for Yao, Duncan, etc… Did the lakers get the best of that trade??? No, but u can’t call it a bust. PJ values kwame and he does contribute on the defensive end. The lakers don’t need offense but defense.
Yes, you can write your apology write here on this website or at the very least say you are sorry about the Bynum trade because if you were the Gm not only would the lakers be worst currently but their future would be bleak without Bynum and Farmar.
You’re not even making any sense anymore.
Typical response when you can’t back it up with any good argument.
Self-declared victory isn’t worth much either.
Rpoc: What dynasty are you referring to? Are you talking about the Kobe/Shaq dynasty? If so, you can blame boy wonder Kobe Bryant for destroying that one as he “got tired of being a sidekick” to Shaq. Kobe wanted his own team and he got it. I don’t understand what dynasty you are referring to that Mitch “blotched”. Please explain.
Bynum for JO would’ve been a completely rip off. JO is one of the most over-rated players in the NBA. He’s a total injury proned player that only had good years when he had Artest, Harrington and Steven Jackson. Now, he’s nothing. JO coming to L.A. would NOT would never have had the impact that Bynum has had or will have as a Laker in the future years. Bynum is a player that could stay with the Lakers and be dominate for the next decade.
You mention Dwight Howard, and frankly I think Bynum has the potential to be WAY better than Dwight Howard because Howard shows NO signs of a post up game (at least Bynum is showing he can do more than dunk). All Dwight Howard can do offensively is dunk. Like I said, Bynum has shown a few more moves than just dunking.
Again, please explain this dynasty that Mitch blotched? Are you referring to Fisher going to Golden St. because he was offered more money. Are you referring to Rick Fox retiring? Or are you referring to Horry wanting to go back to Texas to be with his family, which is where he is from? Or are you referring to Karl Malone injuring his knee at the age of 39 (or was it 40) and then Kobe killing that relationship because Kobe thought Malone hit on his wife.
What dynasty?
Let’s point one thing:
Cook, Rush, Sasha, Walton, Cook.
And then look at these type of picks:
Turiaf, Bynum, Farmar, Wafer, Critt.
What are the difference between the drafting philosophy then and now? Athleticism and talent. Wafer sucked but he had the right idea.
What did he miss? Prince and Barbosa. These players fit into the category of what he drafts now.
Just one of the things he failed at which was replenishing a dyansty with young talent like the Spurs did with Parker with Ginobli to balance the older talent who will eventually age.
And remember:
WINNING solves everything. Kobe and Shaq won despite hating each other guts. Problems occurred when they lost.
Do you hear anything from Kobe this year? No because they are winning.
Excuse me, I mean Sasha instead of Cook twice.
You know what, you two are missing a key component for Bynum’s rapid development on the Lakers:
Kareem is under contract with the Lakers.
If he went to the Pacers he would not have had the luxury of having Kareem at every practice at home. (he doesn’t travel with the team)
Bynum has been improving in the season with Kareem. Remember when he was getting into foul trouble while starting? He talked to Kareem and they adjusted that and he never looked back.
He also has Kobe being WAY more supportive this season. Bynum said Kobe helped him on what he should do to defend JO while watching tape. He completely stopped him.
Nevermind the fact the Lakers have multiple people who know how to get the ball to Bynum:
Kobe and Fisher did it with Shaq. The best out of them.
Farmar is a point guard to he knows.
Walton is a system passer.
Lamar can.
Critt can but he doesn’t get time.
He especially benefits from the Kobe/Bynum pick and roll. Who are you gonna sag off? Pick your poison. Pacers don’t have a Kobe.
Twenty something Gm’s missed out on barbosa and prince so you don’t have to single out one gm. not logical or fair. Walton was a second round pic…not bad.. and don’t forget rush and walton and cook where drafted during Shaq reign… rush and cook were good shooters and walton very smart player for the tri… things change when you have to move Shaq… wonder why we had to move shaq??? please, who really broke the dynasty…that has been known for awhile now… so really the mistakes of mitch have been more far and in between than on a regular basis. i am still waiting on a gm that hasn’t made a mistake. find any???
credit the lakers for getting kareem to tutor bynum.. and credit Bynum for working his ass out this summer and don’t credit kobe for wanting to “ship his ass out”. I am not going to credit Bynum for setting the screens for kobe so don’t credit kobe for passing the ball to bynum. It is not easy doing the pic and roll for a big guy. Just ask Kwame. I am not also going to credit bynum even though kobe can get 2-3 assists more a game this yr. because of him. i don’t hear anything from kobe because they are winning and because kobe was wrong about the talent on this team. and so were you.
YOu can’t replenish a dynasty that was split and crumbled to a 34-48 record. You kinda have to start over. This is not about replenishment, but rebuilding.
Your right the pacers don’t have a kobe. The pacers also don’t have a Bynum. But if you were the Gm the pacers would have Bynum. GLAD MITCH HIS THE GM AND NOT RPOC. AREN’T YOU????
So what? A bunch of teams missed on Farmar. That logic is poor. You get gems when you scout properly and you have the correct drafting philosophy. When he thinks about getting a system player, he drafted Luke and Walton. When he thought of getting the best athletic talent available, he got Farmar, Turiaf.
Besides, Barbosa was RECOMMENDED by Harper who was our point guard in the triangle. He said he would fit well. What do the Lakers do? Ignore it and get Cook who’s a system player.
They didn’t scout Rush and took anyway despite scouting Prince.
Anyyway you slice it, those two would have developed to help the Lakers.
*Luke and Cook.
Exactly a bunch of gm’s missed on farmar so i don’t criticize them for missing out on him neither do I criticize mitch for missing out on prince when a bunch of gm’s also did. you made my pt. your too much into minutiae and can’t see the whole pic… so what.. harper recommended barbosa… we don’t know what else he recommended.. he could have recommended Royal Ivey or Justin Reed… so whats your point??? my point is you can grab any scout or FO personnel who says yeah they should have drafted who i liked, but if you went with everything that guy said, you would be in the lottery. Even the losers get lucky sometime. Mitch is turning out to be a winner with how he is making this team into a contender without the help of kobe or your recommendations.
Give me one gm that is better than Mitch. Just one out of 30. I am not saying Mitch is the best GM and that is the conclusion you probably are already jumping to but i will show you that that gm has made many mistakes maybe even more so than mitch has.
ONe GM… Easy enough??? you have a choice of 29 others
How is Barbosa and Prince not thinking about the big picture? Walton and Cook picks aren’t the big picture type of picks.
The big picture is that the players on your championship team will age, so you better damn well scout well and draft well to increase the possibilities of finding gems to help them in the future to WIN. And especially pay attention to your MLE signings.
Hey, I know GMs don’t get everything. The Spurs pick of Urdih didn’t turn out too well and he got cut. They got Parker and Gino. Their gems outweight their faulty pick.
The issue is what Mitch did wrong with drafting wasn’t just missing out, it was the WRONG philosophy. He wanted system role players who can contribute sooner instead of the best pick available with the best potential in terms of IQ, athleticism, and talent.
You get Sasha, Cook, Walton, Rush because of that.
The problem with the Rush pick was that he DIDN’T EVEN SCOUT HIM! He listened to the hype when he dropped to him. Genius. If the Magic listened to the hype to take on Okafor instead of Dwight they would have looked like idiots. On the other hand, they were going to pick Prince after SCOUTING him. Too bad they didn’t.
Sure, Harper may have recommended some other people. However, Barbosa was his MAIN recommendation for THAT pick. So it doesn’t matter if he recommended other people if he said PICK that guy if he’s available. What do the Lakers do instead? Pick Cook who they thought would be ready sooner but had less potential. INSTEAD of Barbosa who’s the big picture player who is more likely to have a better future despite coming in less developed. Like Bynum.
You’re being hypocritical. You praise him for the picks that he’s making now because of a changed philosophy, but refuse to criticize the picks he missed out because he had a different philosophy back then.
Then let’s move on to trades.
The Shaq trade was made because they didn’t have a choice. Ok, I’ll give you that even though Riley said he was extremely happy the Lakers didn’t make too much of an effort to ask for Wade.
What about the Kwame for Butler trade which was made very quickly in the summer? You would think after the Shaq trade he would learn that panic trades to fill a need isn’t a good thing. He didn’t get any other deals done except McKie after that…. who couldn’t even play.
Now he’s being extremely careful. He didn’t pull a Artest for Bynum package when he had the chance. He didn’t pull a Kidd for Bynum packaged when he had a chance. He didn’t pull a Odom + Bynum for JO (the only package fraking ass Bird would do) trade when he had a chance. ALL of which I was against and that was good.
It’s a double-edged sword though. He miss out something because of this extreme caution but so far so good.
Now he is doing some trades right:
Samb (2nd round pick) for Mo. Steal.
Mo and Cook for Ariza. Even more of steal.
That’s great. It only took him a bunch of years to draft with the RIGHT mentality and philosophy and being more savvy in trades, even if his recent successful ones are minor.
Missing out on signing Fisher the first time was on him too. They claimed they didn’t want to overpay. Ironically, now he’s willing to give the same contract he refused to Fisher to Vlad and Luke. His MLE signings nothing to praise for either (George–resign , Divac, McKie, Vlad–only acceptable one except his Space Cadet year)
How about resigning George with the MLE instead of oh, you know…. BIRD RIGHTS so our MLE became wasted that year. That was another brilliant move.
Hurrah. I’m so glad it took Mitch this long to get things right. /sarcasm
big picture means you have to take into consideration everything not just one trade or one pick. I answered your philosophy question but i guess u just passed it.. remember we did have shaq then..
i gave reasons for the pics which were sound reasons but the picks were mistakes, yes. HE did make up for the cook one in getting ariza. and as far as the shaq trade he was forced to do that pronto or else you have no kobe on the lakers. And riley never said “the lakers did not make too much effort too ask for wade”. They weren’t getting him period. the lakers were under time pressure. that is getting kobe to sign on the dotted line.
you speculating that he didn’t scout rush… and how do u know he was listening to the hype…again speculating…
You said
He didn’t pull a Odom + Bynum for JO (the only package fraking ass Bird would do) trade when he had a chance. which I was against and that was good.”
But you were for Bynum, farmar and fillers for JO which would have been very bad. Like less ships bad if any with JO and probably none with you giving up both Bynum and farmar. Remember a dominating big man greater than a very good power forward.
They were rebuilding when Shaq left and that is why fish was not signed and fish was making 7 mil his last three years on his previous contract.
Again show me who you would consider a better Gm. I still have not seen your answer to that one. you have 29 choices…
Duh, big picture were those picks. We had Shaq and Kobe so that meant Prince and Barbosa had more time to develop.
You’re not even getting my point. I already acknowledge GMs make mistakes and pointed out to one of the Spurs mistakes and my beef of Mitch’s drafting mentality. But it continues to fly through your mind. Why should I list another GM when I ALREADY know they have made mistakes. My beef and I REPEAT to you is his PHILOSOPHY, MENTALITY, he had BACK then.
JO wouldn’t have been a complete rip for this reason: they are contenders with Kobe and Odom in their respective primes.
There is only ONE true center in the West and that is Yao who is a jumpshooting one. All the others are PF as Cs and that didn’t stop the Spurs from winning or the Boston with Kevin Garnett going on a tear.
A 20/10 PF DPOY level guy paired up with a 16/10 Odom and Kobe with Fisher back? That’s damn good.
It’s not like Butler where he turned into an all-star and Kwame is just a role player. Bynum will explode slower on the Pacers while JO is an all-star.
The Lakers are banking on Bynum doing the same thing Kobe did when he was 21 and that was become a championship player at the age of 20. I have more confidence he can do it now but while I acknowledge this, you should ACKNOWLEDGE that JO/Odom/Kobe with Fisher and other role players (Critt would even get time), are MORE than capable of competing.
JO is injury prone. Well, so what, so is Kwame and Odom.
To add more to the point of JO/Odom/Kobe, did you expect a trio of Boozer/Okur/Deron + Fisher with a good bench but not strong to go all the way to the WCF last year?
Especially now that the Spurs, Suns, Mavs, Jazz, Rockets each have some some sign of vulnerability this year?
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JO would have never been an all star in the west. He would have had to play alot of center on the lakers. They would have had to give up kwame in the trade and they would be left with MIhm.
Get off your Philosophy kick… just stick to the trades or picks themselves.. we can argue philosophy all nite..socrates or plato.. get my drift??
That team you suggested with JO would not get by the spurs and would lose alot of depth without farmar. Also subtracting bynum you won’t be better than you are now. JO would have to take to much of a load at center and against the PF’s like duncan he would not be a difference maker.
Bynum will explode slower on the pacers??? who knows doesn’t matter the real thing is what u gave up in trading him and how valuable he is to the lakers right now.. i would say very valuable.
Would the lakers compete…yes they would but they would not get by the spurs and it would be questionable if they could get by the suns and mavs without bynum. YOu would have a very good team that would get close but never getting a ship. There are lots of teams like that. What they have now has a legit chance