Originally Posted by
wantitall4moi
yeah 3 guys are a team huh? And they lost 2 of those guys for awhile already. granted Kobe injury was after I made OP but my OP also said that possibility of Kobe getting injured were pretty high, since he is getting older and worn down, so regardless it is still a valid statement. Just like I said the probability of Bynum getting hurt are pretty high as well. So the chances of them being a lottery pick now are definitely higher than they were when I made the OP.
I also said AS IS, so that disregards moves they might make. But right now with the way things go they probably do what I suspect, eat the season as is and look forward to trying to do something next year when it wont cost them nearly as much. Other than Howard, which is a homerun and will cost them more than he is worth what else is there to get? That exception is useless right now.
IMO if they trade away Bynum and any Gasol for howard theyll be even worse than they are now. So that isnt an option either. Artest and Bynum and some cash or a pick might get it done but I doubt anyone wants artest contract which I think still has 3 years and around 19 mil left on it. I am not 100% sure who they have used their amnesty on would either be artest or walton. And like I said there is an almost 100% certainty Ron Artest loses his mind this season without Phil there to keep him under wraps. not that losing him would be a great loss anyway.
But you named 3 guys, Kobe out at least 4 games maybe a dozen. Bynum, out 5 and probably more due to some inhury down the road. And gasol, how long will he last if he has to carry the team? Ten who do you have? Kapono? he is a stiff. Blake? Another stiff but the same ilk as kapono can get hot and hit a few threes but not a thing you can rely on. Fisher? He is 37 and playing on 40+ year old legs he wont handle the schedule they have.
They werent that great last year despite winning the division (again) they were a decent team in a shitty division. So if you look at it like any other sport they benefited from that. getting swept by an team that was actually decent pretty much showed that. And this year they are worse. And they didnt addres any of the problems that were exposed in that dismantling by Dallas. Howard wont fix those things either.
So lakers are worse, still old and slow, new coach, new system, the division is much better with clippers clearly improved and golden State also improving greatly. Still a funny year and the division schedule isnt what it would normally be but with so many games in short periods of time lack of depth, injuries, and suspension are much more costly in 66 games than 82.
I also just looked at what they are paying troy murphy, seriously I never heard of this guy, and he has been in the league 10 years. Theyre paying that stiff 12 mil this year. So just another 'great' signing by the lakers. So now you have this stiff at 12 mil, artest at 6.3 and Walton at 5.2, thats 23.5 million for guys who shouldnt even be on a Lakers roster. Add that to Kapono's 6.something and you have 30 mill wasted right there.
Fisher sucks but he is only getting 3.7, and Barnes is a steal at 1.75. Comparitively speaking. And Josh mcRoberts, probably their best bench guy (which is horrible in and of itself in the first place) is making less than a million this year.
They have 98 million on the books at least. Minus their amnesty player, whomever that is. So call it 90 million. I cant remember when the luxury tax kicks in but I imagine it is long before that. So looking at that roster and the paychecks it is a bad situation for The Lakers, and it doesnt look to get much better going forward.
People bury their heads in the sand because it is the laker name and they have always gotten the sweat heart deal, well they didnt this time around and theyre going to pay for it. Still a very slim chance howard goes there but can they afford him? One might say yes, easily, but he will want big bucks, kobe wont take a pay cut, theyll still owe walton and arest a lot of money and depending on how they did the deals of the stiffs they picked up this year they might be on the hook for them also.
Like i said lakers are a disaster in many ways, not just on the floor. but most people cant look past the stuff they have done in the past when they got guys for nothing.