Quick New Contending Plan

[One Love]

We have all talked about being one piece away for some time now and assumed KB24 and LO were the first two pieces prior to this year... The general contention over the summer was do you trade Bynum for that third piece (JO or Gasol) to contend now or develop Bynum for the future... First and foremoast, BYNUM AS ARRIVED and the young guns (Farmar, Ariza, Turiaf and Critt) all look solid...

That being said, I am ABSOLUTELY SICK of LO's inconsistency, injuries, $13.5 million dollar salary and the fact he NEVER improves during the offseason... The PLAN is very simple... Trade LO for an expiring contract and a young piece and start Ariza, Turiaf and Bynum up front... We may be able to even dump Radman or another contract in the deal... Turiaf plays harder, will score the same or more, is consistent, runs the floor and brings it EVERY night... Does he have all the skills of LO, absolutely not, but for $800,000.00 a year, he is a steal and we wont lose that much as LO's dimes are now less than three a game (all time low for him)... By trading LO we will be close to $16 million to $17 million (my calculations) under the Salary Cap which would enable us to pick up that third piece (maybe two solid players) this offseason...

We could make plays for Artest (ETO), Arenas (ETO), Josh Smith (R), Deng (R), Antawn Jamison (UR), Pietrus (UR), Okafor (R), Wells (UR), Brand (ETO), Maggette (ETO), Marion (ETO) or James Jones and the BEST thing about it is we din't have to have the cooperation of another team as NOBODY wants to help LA get better... Not only could they play in LA but they could play with a legit big man, best coach and the best player in the game... I understand the MOVE is BOLD but you need to take chances to be a LEGIT contender in todays NBA...

[tkb]

We're 10 million or less under the cap if we trade Odom for an expiring contract and don't resign Turiaf.

I suppose from your post you'd like Turiaf here, so that takes about 4-5 million out of that number too, so we're looking at a little more than MLE type money unless we unload a lot more with Odom.

[snaquille oatmeal]

I would not be surprised if we traded LO and Kwame for that one missing piece, and then again I would not be surprised if we didn't trade anybody.

[Slava]

We need to be trading Radmanovic along with Odom to get substantially under the cap and there aren't many teams that'd offer an expiring for Radmanovic's contract.

Our best bet would be to showcase them both and then look at an S&T in the offseason.

[tayzer]

If we trade Odom and Vlad, we have to trade for a starting big man. We don't need no ball hogging point guards. Agent zero, will kill our team chemistry.

Plus, Bynum dissappears against good defenders, so we need someone perferably a PF that can play, when Bynum gets rough up.

[Tommy Trojan]

Is JO still out there? Do we want to make a run at him towards the end? Or is he not worth it?

Kwame + Farmar or Critt + a draft.

Or to make salaries work put in Vlad, or even Luke

[chefy]

radman plus 2nd for najera and kleiza?

[One Love]

TKB keep in mind we could use our $10 million (under the cap) to sign a player (only three teams will have more money) then sign Turiaf after with our Bird Rights... I feel very confident we could land a handful of those players for $10 million or less...

I would love to package him up with Radman but feel our suiters would be limited... The LO expirement is DEAD...

[One Love]

I also think we could keep Turiaf for around $3 million a year given his history with the squad (heart surgery, Kobes relationship, etc...)... LO is the issue in my opinion...

[jerkslo]

Okay, OL, let's say I agree with your premise (which I sort of do), here are some of the mid to larger expirings around the league. Which one(s) to target, and how/why does it happen? I've starred (*) the larger contracts.

Josh Childress
Tye Lue
Lorenzen Wright
Emeka Okafor*
Ben Gordon
Luo Deng
Chris Duhon
Ira Newble
Eduardo Najera
Michael Pietrus
Matt Barnes
Sam Cassell*
Shaun Livingston
Jason Williams*
Ricky Davis*
Jake Voskuhl
Theo Ratliff**
Michael Doleac
Jamal Magloire*
Fred Jones
Carlos Arroyo
Pat Garrity
Keyon Dooling
Gordo Giricek
Kevin Ollie
Brent Barry*
Robert Horry
Michael Finley
Francisco Elson
Kurt Thomas**
Antwan Jamison**

I'd be fine with losing Odom, Walton, Crittenton, Mihm in this type of scenario.

This may sound strange, but my dream scenario would be:

LAL out: Odom, Walton, Mihm, Crittenton
LAL in: Kurt Thomas, Wally Sczerbiak, Delonte West

Seattle out: Kurt Thomas, Wally Sczerbiak, Delonte West
Seattle in: Odom, Walton, Mihm, Crittenton

What's my logic? Thomas is a quility big who could play PF THIS YEAR and legitimately add something to that positon for LA. And by the way, his huge contract expires this year. West is a young guard who's contract expires this year, but who also is a quality player in my opinion. An Scerbiak; which many of you will call me crazy over, would be a specialist off the bench, and who's defence isn't any worse than Luke Walton's, IMO. But the real reason to include him is that NEXT YEAR, his contract will be a HUGE expiring that could be used in an offseason trade, or a deadline trade. An I HONESTLY do not think we're giving up all that much for THIS YEAR's playoff run, mainly because Kurt Thomas fills a need at PF for us, and Scerbiak can almost cover the loss of Walton.

[ak777]

I hope indy trades JO to us for odom/farmar/kwame......we will be contending couple of years to come

[LLcoleJ]

TKB keep in mind we could use our $10 million (under the cap) to sign a player (only three teams will have more money) then sign Turiaf after with our Bird Rights... I feel very confident we could land a handful of those players for $10 million or less...

Thats not exactly how it works.

To get under the cap we would need to renounce Ronny, once he has been renounced we cannot go back and sign him with bird rights.

[tayzer]

Yea that's if JO fits better with the Laks, from what I seen this year Odom is outplaying JO, but sometimes u have to take chances, like we did with Ariza.

[jerkslo]

Seriously, can we stop bringing up Jermaine Oneal?! Wrong attitude for this team, way over-rated, no better than the players we have.

[TommyTheCat]

i think this team can contend as is.

[slifersd]

Yea that's if JO fits better with the Laks, from what I seen this year Odom is outplaying JO, but sometimes u have to take chances, like we did with Ariza.

LO is only looking like he is playing better than JO because Kobe is spoon feeding him every shot he takes. LO has lost his ability to create his own shots this season and is no more than an above average finisher around the basket at this point. Once JO is here, you will be able to see how well he can function as the second in command with Kobe creating easier shots for him every night.

[TommyTheCat]

-= original quote snipped =-


Once JO is here

jo is not coming

[Erik Eleven]

Two comments:

[semi-sentient]

Is JO still out there? Do we want to make a run at him towards the end? Or is he not worth it?

Kwame + Farmar or Critt + a draft.

Or to make salaries work put in Vlad, or even Luke

Why do we need both JO and LO? LO is the one that has to go.

Miami might be interested in trading Davis + J. Will + Haslem for LO + Turiaf + Radman. It addresses their need to get bigger, while adding an outside shooter. Of course, they are still deficient @C and PG, but it's feasible to think that they can make a decent MLE signing and lottery pick to get respectable in those departments.

If that went down, we could use the expirings from Davis and J. Will to get JO perhaps. That leaves us with the following lineup:

Fisher / Farmar
Kobe / Critt
Bynum / Kwame
JO / Haslem
Ariza / Walton

That should give us one of the best (if not the best) defensive lineups in the league, while actually improving offensively. Our bench improves since Haslem with the addition of Haslem, and if everyone continues to improve we should still have one of the best benches in the league to give our aging starters some solid minutes on the bench.

[numbas]

we should trade kwames expiring for another player idno who but i think that would be ideal kobe bynum lo and then another good solid player would be better i think then kobe bynum and a FA,but i would trade them both maybe in a huge deal to bring in a legit PF