**LA LAKERS THREAD** Sitting on 17! 2023-2024 offseason begins

[lovehateself]

Yeah....and the worst part is it's gonna take a LONG time to get back.

nah man, dengs deal is off the books this summer
we gon be back back

 

[DLF]

Clippers now the real team in LA

Better owner
Better coach
Better gm
Better supporting cast

Got rid of their unlikeables.

 

[had pants]

 

[darthska]

Clippers now the real team in LA

Better owner
Better coach
Better gm
Better supporting cast

Got rid of their unlikeables.

-foe

 

[oh you mad]

I'll be rooting for the real LA natives in the playoffs...

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[MajinZuub]

I'll be rooting for the real LA natives in the playoffs...

Spoiler

Spoiler

Have fun with that They haven't beat a top tier team all year

 

[DLF]

I'll be rooting for the real LA natives in the playoffs...

Spoiler

Spoiler

Damb

 

[oh you mad]

Have fun with that They haven't beat a top tier team all year

Lol just jokes havent watched a Bulls game all season.

as long as Celtics dont win

 

[Lizakers]

 

[moonman818]

I stopped caring the night I saw Bron & Melo @ the hookah spot 45 minutes after a major L

 

[DLF]

Again. I’ve been saying this for weeks/maybe months.


Y’all worried about a bunch of idiots that don’t give a ****. Including ownership who would rather save 2 mill dollars than increase their chance of winning

 

[mr j 858]

04 Pistons were LOADED with size and elite bigs, enough to disrupt Shaq and Medvedenko LOL. Had Horace and Mailman been 100% healthy, Lakers probably win the series.

Don't tell me DET with All-Stars Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace, the lengthy Tayshaun Prince PLUS former All-Stars Memo Okhur and Antonio McDyess, PLUS Elden Campbell and Big Corliss Williamson weren't built to complement Chauncey and Rip so they could win it all.

Don't tell me the Lakers acquisition of Mychal Thompson and his 10 min a game wasn't done so LAL could counter all that size from the Celtics and Bad Boys of DET.

If having Impact Bigs didn't matter then how come Sir Charles, Oliver Miller, Tom Chambers, and Mark West wasn't enough to beat Cartwright, Grant, Levingston, Williams, Kukoc, and Stacey King even though PHX had All-Stars Kevin Johnson and Dan Majerle plus Ced Ceballos, Danny Ainge, and Richard Dumas, all scorers deluxe?

It's cause Chicago's Bigs were Better. Nonetheless they still needed impact bigs cause you take Cartwright and Grant away from the Bulls and replace them with scrubs like Keith Closs and Matt Fish and MJ don't three peat.

If you can win titles "going small" then how come in two separate playoff series Nash, Amare, Matrix, Diaw, Bell, Barbosa, Jalen Rose, James Jones, Kurt Thomas, Joe Johnson, Quentin Richardson and D'Antoni - a team that, btw, would win 60 games in today's NBA - could never beat Duncan, Horry, Nesterovic, Nazr Mohhamed, Malik Rose, Matt Bonner, and Oberto in the playoffs? Let's not act like Timmy was averaging 40 against PHX and didn't need the help of his bigs.

And after all Amare, Marion, and Nash were just as big a Big 3 as Tim, Manu,and Tony STATISTICALLY SPEAKING. Isn't it?

But which team had more bigs and thus could play more physical and protect the paint, grab key rebounds, win the positioning battle inside, etc etc.

There's a reason, after winning the title and after failing to win the title, that MIL added Ibaka after trying out Cousins, and PHX added McGee and Biyombo so they can help Ayton be more physical and throw bigger bodies at Giannis when they meet in the Finals rematch.

As great as Embiid and Jokic are, they won't win it all cause they don't have enough Javale's, Lopez's, Portis's, and Ibaka's on their roster to help them out. It's the same reason the Lakers won't win another chip until they get AD some legitimate help inside.

Last year, "the Suns quite literally had the best big in the series" according to some folks, but why didn't they win? Well, here's hoping the additions of McGee and Biyombo and the subtractions of Saric and Kaminsky will yield better results.

Seeing that PHX beefed up, what was Milwaukee's response? Let's go ahead and bring in ex-champ Serge Ibaka to help Giannis.

When you watch NBA basketball for 40 plus years, there is ONE COMMON DENOMINATOR on ALL Championship teams going back 50-plus years and it definitely ain't "you can win going small, you can win without solid bigs."

In fact, you don't even need an elite big or elite Center to win it all, as long as the team's supporting cast has enough impact bigs aka impact players with SIZE AND LENGTH, guys with experience, to support the star guards or star forwards in order to make the team a defensive force come playoff time.

See: Chicago Bulls dynasty. See: Detroit Pistons 88-91 and 04. See: Toronto Raptors 2018. See GSW dynasty.

See: 88 Lakers with a 39-40-year old way past his prime Jabbar but still had Worthy, Green, Rambis, Thompson, and of course Magic and his 9 rebs per game. You surround Magic and old *** Kareem with mediocre/scrub bigs like Stanley Roberts, Mel Turpin, Dwayne Schintzius, and Brad Sellers instead of Green, Thompson, and Rambis you think they go back to back in 87-88? lol

Even the back to back Olajuwon Rockets needed the length and defense of Otis Thorpe, Chucky Brown, Robert Horry, Carl Herrera plus stretch big Chilcutt to contend with all those bigs the Knicks had and then have to deal with Shaq and Grant the following year. As we know, Shaq had no other bigs but Grant to help him that's why he lost. Shaq had Tree Rollins, Jeff Turner, and Anthony Avent...no wonder Olajuwon and co swept them lol

I can go on and on and on.....

Preach Phil Jackson. Tell these LBJ stains on here that playing an offense LBJ at the 5 does NOT work.

Tell them to:

 

[grittyman]

Are they supposed to be sitting on the bench on the verge of tears? We get it, social media is kicking the Lakers while they’re down but this is really nothing in my book

 

[DLF]

Are they supposed to be sitting on the bench on the verge of tears? We get it, social media is kicking the Lakers while they’re down but this is really nothing in my book

Contrarian gritty back at it

 

[moonman818]

Gritty is right.

 

[Lizakers]

Yes. You must either laugh or cry. No in between.

 

[pmatic]

Sometimes you gotta laugh to prevent crying.

 

[lovehateself]

our season summed up by a laugh and cry

 

[grittyman]

They could have been visibly upset for 47.5 minutes and this was the .5 that was caught on camera

I’m not taking a shot at anyone in here, but this is every Laker/Lebron/Russ hater’s dream season and the shots are coming. Some of it will be valid but I think a lot of it will be BS

 

[DLF]

OBVIOUSLY I don’t care that lebron and ad are laughing

But if you think these laker players actually give a **** about winning (mostly guys outside of lebron and ad) then I got some ocean front property in Newport Beach to sell you.

That’s how I took the tweet. Like “hey btw the organization and players don’t care about winning now, they view season to be over, meanwhile fans are living and dying by every Russ turnover”

 

[noblekane]

when frank vogel gets fired ima throw a party.

 

[DLF]

Oldie but goodie

 

[Lizakers]

Ok Windy

“LeBron’s career operates in four-year increments. He wears his team out. I call it organizational fatigue,” Windhorst said. “It happened the first time in Cleveland. They ran out of draft picks, they had a bunch of guys in their mid-30s. Shaq close to the finish line, Antawn Jamison.

“He goes to Miami, four years, great run, they run out of draft picks. In his last game, three guys retired after the game. He goes to Cleveland, four years, great run. They run out of draft picks. They got old guys. Here we are in L.A., fourth year. The oldest team we’ve seen in NBA history, they’re out of draft picks, they’re exhausted.”

The difference now? Windhorst says he loves living and raising his family in L.A., so he’s not ready to leave after this latest run, which also featured an NBA title but three otherwise disappointing seasons.

“I don’t think he wants to move. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too.”

Windhorst: LeBron James ‘Wears Team Out’ in Four Years Everywhere He Goes | Sports Illustrated

 

[Brosizzlew30.23]

I got some ocean front property in Newport Beach to sell you.

You need representation?

 

[tupac003]

Ok Windy

“LeBron’s career operates in four-year increments. He wears his team out. I call it organizational fatigue,” Windhorst said. “It happened the first time in Cleveland. They ran out of draft picks, they had a bunch of guys in their mid-30s. Shaq close to the finish line, Antawn Jamison.

“He goes to Miami, four years, great run, they run out of draft picks. In his last game, three guys retired after the game. He goes to Cleveland, four years, great run. They run out of draft picks. They got old guys. Here we are in L.A., fourth year. The oldest team we’ve seen in NBA history, they’re out of draft picks, they’re exhausted.”

The difference now? Windhorst says he loves living and raising his family in L.A., so he’s not ready to leave after this latest run, which also featured an NBA title but three otherwise disappointing seasons.

“I don’t think he wants to move. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too.”

Windhorst: LeBron James ‘Wears Team Out’ in Four Years Everywhere He Goes | Sports Illustrated

I mean yeah, Lebron is at the tail end of his career and if the team wouldn't have drastically changed as it did after the 2020 title run, we would probably be better.

End of the day it's always going to be about Bron and AD'S health.