Lakers @ Suns 3-9-17

[JCSunsfan]

It reality it does not matter since the Suns no longer own the pick.

I just didn't like the idea the Suns may have traded away a top ten pick for Knight if the Lakers did not land in the top three. It's already bad enough dealing with the Knight contract.

Sure it matters. It matters which pick the Lakers end up with. We are Suns fans, and the worst thing for the Lakers is the best thing for the Suns, by definition.

The fact that it used to be the Suns pick means nothing now.

 

[Cheesebeef]

I think the Lakers will be improved next season with a top draft pick and likely a quality free agent. How good remains to be seen but they will better next season.

people have been saying this for THREE YEARS. Why would there be a change this year... because Magic Johnson is there? There's still not going to be a major FA that is going to want to go to a team who won 25 games.

 

[Cheesebeef]

It is always assumed that the Lakers have an advantage because they are the Lakers. They have the story, the stars, the SoCal, location. But the death of Dr. Buss, and the insane commitment to Kobe took them to the depths. Still they have an advantage over other teams because of those things. Unfortunately for them, I do not think Magic will be that good of a GM and the turmoil in the Buss family makes for uncertainty that players will not trust.

McD's evaluation at the time was well-founded. The Lakers were just about to rebuild Miami style. Lot's of players wanted to be in LA.

this is ABSOLUTELY NOT true. They had already just had one FA period where they got NO ONE and were looking like a disaster and have been a disaster. And please don't give me a "hindsight is 20-20" comment next because there were plenty of people, who thought it was an awful deal AT THE TIME, because we saw how dysfunctional and pathetic the Lakers were. The deal was barely defensible then (and that's being generous) and is absolutely indefensible now.

I think it was a reasonable conclusion that the pick would have been a lotto pick that one year and then they would have added a couple of free agents and then had a pick in the 12-15 range. It was a gamble with pretty good odds.

sorry... it was a gamble, trading away a possibly very good pick for a guy who had just flamed out of his 2ND team. Do you also think signing him to a 70 million dollar deal after the season was well-founded as well? I mean, he made a bad move trading the pick and then doubled down on that stupidity by anchoring the team with a huge contract.

 

[Mainstreet]

people have been saying this for THREE YEARS. Why would there be a change this year... because Magic Johnson is there? There's still not going to be a major FA that is going to want to go to a team who won 25 games.

I really don't think the talent level on the Lakers is that bad especially with the draft and free agency this summer.

The Suns are almost in the same boat and I'm hoping they will be mediocre next season.

 

[Mainstreet]

Sure it matters. It matters which pick the Lakers end up with. We are Suns fans, and the worst thing for the Lakers is the best thing for the Suns, by definition.

The fact that it used to be the Suns pick means nothing now.

Don't tell me if the Lakers finished 4th from the bottom in the 2017 draft Suns fans wouldn't be bellyaching about the player the 76ers drafted at this slot in. It's human nature. The Knight trade will analyzed for years to come.

 

[Yuma]

The only thing, I think posters would be complaining about losing a top pick for Knight into perpetuity, especially if that player became a star. It would be sort of another KT trade moment. The trade for Knight is already bad enough.

We were probably never ever going to get that pick, and that is assuming the person we select at that pick pans out as good as everyone thinks it will, or the draft we finally get the pick has good players. Some drafts have no Super Stars in them. I was OK with using the pick, to supposedly get a near all-star player at the time. It didn't work out, but at the time it looked like a fairly good chance to take.

 

[Mainstreet]

We were probably never ever going to get that pick, and that is assuming the person we select at that pick pans out as good as everyone thinks it will, or the draft we finally get the pick has good players. Some drafts have no Super Stars in them. I was OK with using the pick, to supposedly get a near all-star player at the time. It didn't work out, but at the time it looked like a fairly good chance to take.

Did I miss something? If the Suns kept the Lakers pick it would have eventually conveyed.

Trading the Lakers pick for Knight was a double whammy, losing the pick and gaining Knight (contract).

I agree, hindsight is 20/20.

 

[Yuma]

What I meant by not ever going to get that pick, is over the years the Suns have had the rights to so many teams picks that were protected, and by the time we were even getting close to getting them, invariably we use them for a trade. These great picks almost always never pan out. I never get excited anymore when we get some teams pick that is several seasons out.

 

[hcsilla]

Hard to argue that Hinkie is "simply a better GM" than anyone. If you want to lose on purpose it isn't hard, that part is EASY, the rebuilding and actually stock piling young talent... on that end he was an obscene failure. They've been historically bad for years and as of now what do they have to show for it? A guy who has played less games than Greg Oden through his first 3 seasons? (seriously) And Ben Simmons, who is also injured, recovering much slower than they anticipated and had a lot of red flags coming out of college. So, they've got them, and all their question marks and literally nothing else of value.

Hinkie did a nice job of follow Presti's tanking blueprint... but failed at the "evaluate talent" portion of it, which is the only part that really matters.

I completely disagree.

When Hinkie took over the GM duties, they did not only have absolutely nothing outside of Holiday and Thaddeus Young but also owed a 1st rounder to the Magic from the Bynum-trade.

He got back that 1st rounder in the Saric-trade which was excellent for the Sixers.

Hinkie just robbed the Kings. He discovered Covington and McConnell out of nothing and signed them to long-term minimum contracts. He traded Holiday and Young for 1st rounders which were logical moves for a rebuilding team. Hinkie has found rotation players in the 2nd round in Holmes and McDaniels.

He took risks with picking Embiid and Noel. Embiid has shown this year what he is capable of. Hinkie had bad luck as both suffered further, unexpected injuries.

He traded MCW at his peak for a very valuable pick. Drafting Simmons was a no-brainer. Getting him injured was another bad luck.

Hinkie just did a wonderful job. All his decisions were correct and he took respectable risks. His only bad decision was taking Okafor at #3 with Porzingis, Winslow, Turner and Booker all still being on the table.

At the moment he decides to return to the NBA, he will be offered a job by a bunch of NBA teams.

 

[JCSunsfan]

this is ABSOLUTELY NOT true. They had already just had one FA period where they got NO ONE and were looking like a disaster and have been a disaster. And please don't give me a "hindsight is 20-20" comment next because there were plenty of people, who thought it was an awful deal AT THE TIME, because we saw how dysfunctional and pathetic the Lakers were. The deal was barely defensible then (and that's being generous) and is absolutely indefensible now.



sorry... it was a gamble, trading away a possibly very good pick for a guy who had just flamed out of his 2ND team. Do you also think signing him to a 70 million dollar deal after the season was well-founded as well? I mean, he made a bad move trading the pick and then doubled down on that stupidity by anchoring the team with a huge contract.

LaMarcus Alderidge was considered a high likelihood of going to LA. Didn't most people think that Westbrook was going to go to LA too, along with Durant later?

Yeah, I probably gave McD a little bit too much credit here, but I don't think it is as starkly bad as you are making out.

For instance, describing Knight as someone who had just "flamed out of his second team" is not accurate. He had been playing well for Milwaukee and they regressed without him. His 3 point shooting had increased to over 40%. If he had "flamed out" Kidd hid it really really well.

Oh, good grief, why are we still talking about this? It's like the McDyess defection and the playoff suspensions. Its going to be ten years of back and forth with no resolution.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Don't tell me if the Lakers finished 4th from the bottom in the 2017 draft Suns fans wouldn't be bellyaching about the player the 76ers drafted at this slot in. It's human nature. The Knight trade will analyzed for years to come.

Fans may do so, but I would not care. The pick is not ours. Woulda, shoulda, coulda, makes no difference right now.

The only real question is whether we want Philly to have the 4th pick or higher the Lakers a 1-3 pick. I would rather Philly have the pick. They are not our rivals and they are not in our division.

 

[Yuma]

Conjecture is missing out on all those free agents in LA led to Kupchack getting fired. This Cousins thing had ramifications all over the league.

 

[Mainstreet]

We were probably never ever going to get that pick, and that is assuming the person we select at that pick pans out as good as everyone thinks it will, or the draft we finally get the pick has good players. Some drafts have no Super Stars in them. I was OK with using the pick, to supposedly get a near all-star player at the time. It didn't work out, but at the time it looked like a fairly good chance to take.

Although the Suns may trade their Miami picks their 2018 pick might be closer than we think if they continue to play well.

2018 first round draft pick to Phoenix
Miami's 1st round pick to Phoenix protected for selections 1-7 in 2018 and unprotected in 2019 [Miami-New Orleans-Phoenix, 2/19/2015]

http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/draft/future_drafts/detailed


Edit: Some agreement may have been made on the 2018 pick to push it to 2019 where it would be unprotected. I can't recall at the moment.

 

[AzStevenCal]

I think Kupchak and Junior came to realize that the league has changed and the days of LA buying the next superstar are long gone when they watched the hotly pursued Greg Monroe sign in Milwaukee. Miss Junior will come to accept this reality in short order too and unlike Jim, she's rumored to actually be fairly intelligent. So I won't be surprised to see her moves pay dividends eventually.

Pelinka will have a lot more to do with running that office than Magic will IMO. My guess they'll still end up with Cousins and they'll put Paul George next to him fairly soon. They'll do this and hang onto a couple of their prospects and it will start to look like a very successful rebuild within the next 18 months. I don't think that by itself it will be a true contender but they'll be close enough that someone like Kevin Durant, coming off their second contract but still fairly young, could legitimately put them into that conversation.

LA and a few other traditional big named cities might still enjoy a slight advantage over the rest of the league but it's a much more level playing field these days. When they do use their advantages to land that next big star, they will have a much smaller window than they've had in the past because that player will likely be 30-ish when they get him as opposed to the 25 and under stars they've grabbed in the past.

The rest of us will have to do it with draft picks and we have 8 to 10 years to build a relationship with that draft star so that we can hopefully keep them into that 3rd contract. That's about as fair of a playing field as you could hope for in a league that has typically been dominated by the very rich markets.

 

[AzStevenCal]

He took risks with picking Embiid and Noel. Embiid has shown this year what he is capable of. Hinkie had bad luck as both suffered further, unexpected injuries.

He traded MCW at his peak for a very valuable pick. Drafting Simmons was a no-brainer. Getting him injured was another bad luck.

Hinkie just did a wonderful job. All his decisions were correct and he took respectable risks. His only bad decision was taking Okafor at #3 with Porzingis, Winslow, Turner and Booker all still being on the table.

At the moment he decides to return to the NBA, he will be offered a job by a bunch of NBA teams.

Hinkie did some things well but he didn't just take "risks" when he drafted Noel and Embiid, he went against medical advice. That's just stupid. And he antagonized just about everyone he dealt with and he did that in a league where solid relationships with other GMs are very important.

He also had a little more talent to start with than you mentioned but there's no denying he made a killing on a couple of trades. But his "I quit" tantrum supported by his public manifesto will make it much harder, if not impossible, for him to land his next job NBA GM job. JMO.

 

[hcsilla]

Hinkie did some things well but he didn't just take "risks" when he drafted Noel and Embiid, he went against medical advice.

I disagree. I think he has taken medical risk into account. That's why he drafted Embiid at #3 and Noel at #6. I would have done the same thing (not that it means much). Who would you have taken before Noel and Embiid at the time they were drafted?

And he antagonized just about everyone he dealt with and he did that in a league where solid relationships with other GMs are very important.

Did he? How?

He also had a little more talent to start with than you mentioned but there's no denying he made a killing on a couple of trades. But his "I quit" tantrum supported by his public manifesto will make it much harder, if not impossible, for him to land his next job NBA GM job. JMO.

I did love his public manifesto. It was well written and he is a bright mind. Everything he was pointed out was spot on, correct and a good read.

He with/under Morey obviously leads the moneyballish, new wave of GM's. I understand that owners with more conservative approach might stay away from hiring Hinkie but I do think there are more who will/would value Hinkie's philosophy and icecold decision-making as a GM.

 

[Hoop Head]

Fans may do so, but I would not care. The pick is not ours. Woulda, shoulda, coulda, makes no difference right now.

The only real question is whether we want Philly to have the 4th pick or higher the Lakers a 1-3 pick. I would rather Philly have the pick. They are not our rivals and they are not in our division.

I agree with not caring what happens with that pick, if it was our own first then that would be a different story but it's one we got from the Lakers in the Nash sign and trade, which was a steal for us since we gave up literally nothing. Nash's time here was done, his career was essentially over but no one knew it at that time. We helped him get where he wanted to go and we got 2 firsts and 2 seconds for doing that. The reason they gave all that up is because no one thought they'd implode almost immediately. They had a team of Nash, Kobe, Artest, Gasol, and Howard. Gasol and Howard were still in their primes and the other 3 were all good the year before, albeit on the downside of their careers. If you consider how we got the much talked about Laker pick, I think we did really well with all acquired from the deal.