Quote:
Originally Posted by milkman
I haven't followed the Lakers all that closely over the years, but it seems the biggest mistake Jim Buss and Mitch Kuphhack made was giving Kobe that huge contract as he was entering his career twilight years.
And when look at their last 2 or 3 drafts. they looked to be headed in the right direction.
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Nah - that didn't really do much to them because it was fairly short term.
The biggest mistakes were the deals to Iguodala and Mozgov and drafting Lonzo Ball. Oh, and hiring Byron Scott to try to lead a rebuild.
You don't sign Iguodala and Mozgov, you don't need to deal Russell to get ready of Mozgov's deal. If you can keep Russell, you don't have to draft that half-wit, constantly injured rock-chucker Lonzo Ball and instead you take Jason Tatum to play alongside Russell. You also don't have to build a roster full of scraps to make up for the dead weight you're lugging around on Iguodala's deal so you can keep Julius Randle.
Randle
Ingram
Tatum
James
Russell
Kuzma's probably still the guy they'd have picked with pick they used in the Josh Hart swap, so they probably still have Kuzma off the bench. With Tatum and Russell out there you've put some shooters around James. Even Randle can play a legit stretch 5 now that his 3pt% is in the 34-35% range. He's not excellent there but he's dangerous enough that he'd have to be respected.
Iguodala, Mozgov and Ball are 3 decisions that will hold this franchise back for probably a decade. Just staggeringly awful decisions that led to ripples that removed 3 outstanding young players off the roster or simply never brought them here.
All in the name of Jim Bus being desperate and Magic Johnson being arrogant. And they were maneuvers that were obviously wrong (to me anyway) from the instant they were made. That's not even hindsight shit - I hated all those moves the second they were announced.