If the Lakers have Kobe and Love as the core for next year, they only need to add one really good, semi-top FA and they will be right in the hunt, every bit as much as Cleveland. Love would have to decide whether he wants to chase a ring or go to a perennially top franchise and ride out a likely dip after Kobe retires.
Moving forward, the Lakers would have Love and whoever is the other FA they sign (Rondo?, Butler?) plus a pretty good cadre of young players (Randle, Towns, Clarkson) and once Kobe is gone, they can sign another FA. I don't think the dip is going to last very long for the Lakers.
My conclusion is that I disagree with Jared Dudley. I would not be the least bit surprised if Love goes to the Lakers. I would be far more surprised if he came to the Celtics.
Here's the thing with the Lakers... They have like 30 mil in cap space. They could free up another 5 mil if they dump Nick Young. They could theoretically add both Kevin Love and Rondo, if they still actually want Rondo.
That gives them Rondo, Jordan Clarkson (who just finished all rookie 1st team over Marcus Smart who just finished 6th in the rookie of the year voting behind 4th place marcus smart and 5th place Joseph Nurkic with 3 total points from all voters), Julius Randle, Kevin Love and Okafor. I mean... it wouldn't be too hard for them to trade Randle for a quality forward if they want. I said in another thread they could probably move Randle + Clarkson for Derozan fairly easily if they wanted a scoring forward. Yeah, the defense on that team would be questionable, but whatever...
Here's my point. Say they cap out the salary this year. Kobe falls off the books at the end of the season... the cap jumps 20 mil. That means they'll have about 40 mil in cap space to add talent around Rondo, Clarkson, Randle, Love and Okafor... Ooof. They can replace Kobe with two max contract players. Then Kobe prob comes back mid-season for the vet min anyways, because he'll be bored and want attention.
The year after... cap jumps another 20 mil... you got yourself Rondo, Clarkson, Randle, Love, Okafor, Max Contract 1, Max Contract 2... and now you can add Max Contract 3.
Getting talent this summer is crucial. The cap is going to jump next season and Boston will be competing with every team in the league in the free agent market. Usually talent attracts other talent.
Fixed it for ya
Funny.
Neither of them received a single vote for Rookie of the year... so it's a pretty irrelevant bit of info, aint it? Whereas 74 people voted Clarkson All-Rookie 1st team and 28 voted Smart... so no need to fix it... Clarkson was all rookie 1st team. Smart was all Rookie 2nd team.
Clarkson has trade value. I imagine Clarkson + Randle has considerable trade value. Almost like trading two Marcus Smarts. Lol jk
I think you're still in the undecided phase of what team you're going to end up rooting for. It's a close call between Philly and LAL, huh? However, the monkey wrench is Minny. This could end up being a 3 team race for your loyalty.
I'm a Celtic fan who doesn't ignore facts. Seems from the all rookie voting, one can come to the conclusion that Jordan Clarkson, at least in the eyes of "a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada" had a better rookie season than Marcus Smart. Take that to mean what you will... and how it relates to the widespread opinion of Jordan Clarkson's trade value... which was what I was addressing. I used Smart for context since I understand that most diehard Celtic fans have trouble seeing through the green haze and determining value of players who they don't watch daily. NBA Gm's may disagree... but seems when a "panel of sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada" were polled, 74 voted Clarkson All-Rookie 1st team... 28 voted Smart all-rookie 1st team. So yeah... nice piece to the Lakers puzzle right there.
Smart was playing off the ball for a team that was playing in games that actually mattered. Clarkson was putting up garbage numbers in meaningless games. Had their roles been reversed the numbers would've been far different and you would've been going on and on, on how we should've drafted Smart instead of (insert player here).
If you actually think east coast sportswriters were staying up late to watch the wasteland that was the LAL, and not just going off of boxscores, then gullible would be a fair description.
Regardless of who had the better season. I think everyone including LarBrd can agree that Smart is the better prospect and no one would trade Smart for Clarkson. Thats all that really matters in the Smart Clarkson debate.
As for trade value. Clarksons got a good amount.
However Beasley and Jennings were number 2 and 10 picks respectively. I think Clarksons going to have to prove hes for real a bit longer before teams give up real assets to get him.
This.. players outperform their draft position all the time and gain tremendous amount of value. Draymond Green is a great example of this.
However, he has had to do it for a few seasons, on a top level club to establish his value. I think an NBA executive would have to be pretty stupid to go all in on a player that put up big numbers in blowouts for about 40 games. The guy started 39 nights and played 59 total.
It is just way to big a risk to trade anything of value for him. Even his coach was saying at the end of the season that he was a piece for them, but he wasn't sure if he was a piece you build around or just a piece. Ironically, the Lakers already have a point guard that played brilliantly for about 40 games on their roster this past off season, Jeremy Lin.
Edit: I'll give you a TP for including a really good counter argument in Marshall.
Topic: Jared Dudley: "I would be surprised if Kevin Love goes to the Lakers" (Read 19411 times)