Lex Luther wrote:http://www.probasketballnews.com/pbnbrkng_062607.html
I think it is wrong to blame mitch for this one. Bynum and Odom for KG is absolutely fair. We are even willing to throw in the 19th pick in the deepest draft ever. But McHale is a Laker hater in the same form as Rick Bucher, Julius Erving, and everyone who is from New York but lives in LA. The guy overpaid Tom Gugliotta just so we wouldnt get him. And it bit him in the a$$- deservingly so. I don't understand how this guy still has a job.
So whats next?
Kwame and 19 for Mo Williams (signed at $8 mil a year?)
Bynum and Kwame for Pierce (he will demand a trade, since everyone else is)
Kwame for jamal Crawford
Bynum and change for Gasol (its funny how it would only take Bynum to get Gasol but Indy wants Odom and Bynum for JO. Is JO even more valuable than Gasol, I wonder).
Earl Boykins for the MLE to back up Farmar. (whens the last time we had a good bench player?)
It probably is for the best. If we did the KG trade, we'd be starting Farmar at 1 and Mihm at 5. It would take some creative managing to fix that, and Mitch doesn't have a cell in his brain. Maybe we should get Magic to run the team, or Michael Bloomberg. But I don't blame Mitch for this one- this one is all McHale. He has a reputation to uphold.
Have any of you looked at O'Neals stats over the last three years ?
This was a post over on the Indiana Pacers forum that pretty much sums up everything that we Laker fans are not looking at.
Lack of Respect for Jermaine O’Neal
These trade negoatiations have to be a reality check for Jermaine and all you who put him in that “Superstar” status. No one wants to give proper market value to a player that has only played in 66% of his teams games the past 3 seasons (164 out of 246), Averaged 21.2 pts and shot 45% from the floor the past 3 seasons, 9.2 rebounds per game and 2.3 blocks per game. Jermaine has also been an All Star the past 3 years….
So why no love for The Indiana Pacers franchise player?
Well there are 10 years and 683 games not to mention shoulder and knee injuries. Add that upon playing straight through 3 summers recently and the wear and tear is really coming to the front. No team in its right mind will give you the keys to a city for the 63 million Jermaine is still owned on his contract. How many of your really think he would choose to opt out and lose $40 million or so more dollars for the risk of signing with another “contender”? Ask Karl Malone and Gary Payton if that happened when they signed with the Lakers.
Whats really happining is that teams are now starting to see O’Neal for the player he is now, compared to what he was 3 years ago. He’s afraid to take the ball to the basket with any ferocity (Shoulder injury vs Detroit), He doesn’t jump as well as he used to and has more of his shots blocked around the basket then ever before. Settles for 15 to 20 foot fade-a –way jumpers that effectively limit his and his teammates second chance baskets. One other thing was that we had a coach who tried to over compensate to Jermaine because Jermaine had a “relationship” with former Pacers coach Isiah Thomas. Rick Carlisle from the day he stepped through the doors at Conseco was behind the 8 ball because of Jermaine O’Neal, but in spite of that won 61 games his first season here. In the process over the next couple of years due to that overcompensation of the offense to O’Neal, Carlisle neglected other players on the squad causing distrust and “bad culture”. Hence the Ron Artest sage….Artest wasn’t nuts, he just wanted to have more plays drawn up for him and for Larry Bird to quit peddling him to other teams with regular phone calls.
Screwing Artest around as the Pacers did made the Pacers hold on to Ron longer then the should have because of guilt in the front offices. The Pacers knew they had a talented player, but they had just given their other talented player a multiyear 125 million dollar contract. Hey the old slogan is “The contract plays” and in a small NBA market such as Indiana, it’s never been more true.
So now the Pacers , not desperately mind you, are trying to trade their 10 year “franchise” player. Yet teams like the woefull Celtics don’t want O’Neal (don’t believe what you hear about O’Neal not wanting to go to Boston, he has 63 million reasons to go if traded). The Lakers don’t want to give you market value for the above stats I put in at the beginning.
Lets Look at Lamar Odoms and Andrew Bynums stats over the last 3 years.
Odom has played in 81% of his teams games the past three years (200-246). Averaged 15.3 and shot 47% from the floor. Grabbed 7.6 rebounds per game and had a 4.6 assist average.
Bynum played in 78% of the Lakers games his first two seasons. Averaged 5.6 points per game and shot 53% from the floor. Grabbed 4.4 rebounds and shot 62% from the free throw line.
The Lakers are trying to hold the Pacers up, by not wanting to include Bynum…Which the Pacers have told them that get us a top 10 draft pick and you can keep him. The Lakers by not having other tradeable commodities wouldn’t be able to do that and still keep Odom in the package.
In closing, the Lakers have to do this trade, because the wells are drying up very quickly around the NBA. The GM’s around the league are not going to make the Lakers major players willingly. Its going to take some actual work on Mitch Kupchaks and Jim Buss’s part now. Jerry Buss has stepped in and stepped up in front of Kobe and told him that he will fix the problem…Which tells me and the rest of the NBA how much confidence he has in his son and Kupchack to get this deal (with the Pacers) done. Losing Kobe effectively makes this franchise almost expansion like.
The deal will have to be completed by July 1st as that is when O’neals salary goes up a million dollars or so, which will add a new dynamic to the trade.
The clock is ticking and the Lakers are on it…….What to do, what to do ?????
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