LRob

Excellent breakdown on the replacements. It seems that somehow we managed to screw up on every player we brought in this past season. Maybe Barnes would have worked out better if he hadn't gotten injured; he was playing very well before the injury.

The Theo Ratliff signing and Joe Smith for Sasha have to be the biggest mistakes of them all though. What the heck were we thinking when we signed Ratliff? In fact wasn't he carrying an injury when we signed him initially? I remember something about his feet not being right.

Thanks
PSP Officer

Mr Medina

Lol, like the PSP said you are probably a " How high do you want me to jump" kinda guy.

You probably drive a Toyota Camry ( or equivalent), work regular hours, have home equity, and go to church (or something like that) every sunday. Oh well, like Napoleon of Animal Farm fame said, "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others"

Thanks
PSP Intern

Well, I am looking at blog once a day, but, like many regulars have said all I want to so many times I am now just waiting for the FO to take our advice (LOL) or something to happen with the CBA, so we can do more concrete speculating.

BUT, this picture tease caught my eye. But now I see the blog is full of retorts and complaints about the messenger stuff, so it is not attractive to many of us to contribute or even visit. Why are they attacking MM!? I, for one, appreciate his blurbs about potential FAs out there. He has a whole bunch of Mavs who are FAs to pick from also. Many of his choices are ones I feel are "getable", also.

PSP - I thought that term 'practice season' was put to rest finally last season by the Lakers themselves in their exit from the playoffs, nevermind bloggers like me who screamed about against that mindset all season long. If it is just sarcasm, I am all for that, however. Wish we had the ability to do sarcasm fonts or italics or such..........

This is complete and utter nonsense. Farmar, Sasha, Mbenga and Powell were completely more productive than Smith, Ratliff, Blake and Barnes and that falls squarely on Kupchak. He is paid a hefty sum to provide the coach with a bench he can rely on to rest the starters so he failed miserably and that cost them a run at Dallas. Blake was over paid, Ariza was low balled why? Walton was over paid years ago yet he won't sign Shannon to a long term deal despite being the #2 option off the bench why? Stop overpaying for sorry white players (and Pau making 18 million per year is over paid as well to be honest...he should be in the 15 million range) and get some real NBA guys to help out the starters.

>>>What the heck were we thinking when we signed Ratliff?

I'll tell you... The Veteran Minimum reimbursement program.

If they signed MBenga to a minimum contract, they'd have to pay the whole contract.

Signing Ratliff, the NBA reimbursed the Lakers for part of his salary.

I didn't think Ariza was lowballed, I thought the Lakers pretty much decided that if Artest was available for the same money, he was the guy they wanted. People often retell it that Trevor was holding out for more money but I've never seen much reason to believe that was the case and I remember Trevor denied it completely. At this point, I think a lot of people probably think the team would have been better off with Trevor in the long term.

When Farmar decided to leave, I remember most people saying good riddance. He was looked at as being selfish because he didn't want to play his whole career as a reserve and he got himself into trouble by being too aggressive and trying to show what he can do in his limited minutes. It's hindsight 20/20 but that could have been handled differently. I think he should have been slowly transitioned into a starter's role, even if just against the teams that have guys like Aaron Brooks that show Derek Fisher no mercy.

It could have been like a righty/lefty matchup in baseball, if the team has quick guards, use Farmar. If they have a Jason Kidd or Andre Miller, use Fisher. I have long thought that the team was too reliant on Fisher and that people oversold his abilities but I was usually told that Derek Fisher in the starting rotation is absolutely vital to the team and the chemistry would collapse without him there. I've never understood that thinking. Like Longtimelakerfan said, when Farmar started in that playoff game, he did very well and Aaron Brooks was contained. Phil responded by throwing Fisher out there again the next game and Brooks outscored him 34-2.

Vujacic was just handled all wrong. Both sides were very stubborn and it didn't help the team to not have him playing. Trading Vujacic didn't hurt since he seemingly wouldn't play again anyway but who knows what may have happened in the end when they're having to raid the d-league to find backup guards for playoff games. The mistake was that with all of the speculation of how valuable that expiring contract was and what veteran they might end up getting for it, the team decided to make a financial move and just dump the salary for a cheaper version of a guy they had no intention of playing.

Yahoo Sports Contributor Gil Alcaraz touts Cleveland St. point guard Norris Cole as a possible fit for LAL http://yhoo.it/mgL0cq

NBADraftnet profile: http://bit.ly/jewhhB
ESPN stats: http://es.pn/jvNvI5
YouTube: http://bit.ly/lPubBt (#30)

First take: Haven't seen him play (live full game); clips suggest good forward-lateral quickness, average overall athleticism, solid not superior handle; could struggle against superior athletes at next level; accuracy should be much better (43%/FG% 34%/3PT%) at CSU level of competition; not necessarily a pass-first point guard at CSU; OTOH, showed steady across-the-board improvement each season as 4-yr senior; college nos. similar to Jose Juan Barrera; studied DRose & Deron Williams according to interviews.

Good Day Everyone!

Just wanted to pop my head in here, since I've been on a bit of a hiatus due to final exams etc.

As Nuggets Country has stated, I am *also* waiting for word regarding the new CBA before I start to ramp up the frequency of my comments. I feel as if I'm in a holding pattern regarding the off-season.

I usually come by to read the posts and what not, but until the parameters of a deal are worked out, I really don't have much to contribute...until I read the following:

"Stop overpaying for sorry white players (and Pau making 18 million per year is over paid as well to be honest...he should be in the 15 million range) and get some real NBA guys to help out the starters."

To the person who wrote this - do you mean "(socio-) culturally white"? You'd be surprised which players on the Lakers roster fall under that extension, especially because they make WAY more than the median for someone who is classified as being "Black/African American". See the following for details:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0694.pdf
http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth

The second link is gated, but it's a longitudinal study and you can get the public use raw data to run your own statistical analysis, so long as you follow the directions on the website.

If you just mean "culturally white", are you using particular criteria for partitioning those who are with those who aren't? Perhaps you are using this website as a rough guide: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

If so, I should warn you that people whom you *don't* initially believe are "culturally white" end up being so, depending on if it is necessary or sufficient (or even better, both) that someone *actually* likes one or more of the items on that list.

And if you mean "biologically white"...well...good luck with that one. You won't make too much progress (and it's highly suspect that you will make *any* progress) given that there is no bijection between the sets of objects that have the phenotypical (set 1) and genotypical (set 2) features of what you might associate as "white".

Perhaps your statement would have been a bit more credible if you said that you'd prefer (in the future) that the players signed to play for the Lakers outperform their contracts. This can easily be stated without the unnecessary qualifications of players on the roster. I also shudder to think by what you mean when you say "real NBA players". We're not making any clandestine allusions here, are we?

Lakers send Pau Gasol and Derrick Caracter to Minnesota (maybe Ebanks as well)

Minnesota sends Kevin Love and the #2 pick to the Lakers, plus either Anthony Tolliver or Anthony Randolph.

Minnesota sends Darko Milicic and Martell Webster to Cleveland, and gets back a couple of chunks of Trade Exception (no players coming back).

If Cleveland doesn't want them, then Toronto (who has the Bosh trade exception).

If they don't like Milicic or Webster, then whoever. The point is, if Minnesota is legitimately willing to give up a package including Love and #2 (which I doubt), they'd need to give up other players to match salary. If the Lakers & Minnesota could get a third team (or 3rd & 4th) to take on the other players, then the Lakers are sending out Pau's 18.7 million for next season and only paying Love+Tolliver's 6.6 million plus about 4 million for the first year of the #2 pick.

That sort of a deal would not only swap out one super-star Pau, for an All-Star, a role player, and a rookie with huge upside, but it would save them 16 million dollars in salary + luxury tax next season.

When you combine the savings with the infusion of youth, it makes the deal a bit more appealing to the Lakers.

Posted by: LongTimeLakerFan | June 17, 2011 at 11:44 AM

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I don't like this trade but if modified ok. Leave Ebanks out of deal. Caracter ok. Include Luke in the deal and Minny can waive him or entice him to retire. Or at least play one year for Minny and become expiring contract for Minny so they save money too.