Nets trade Brook Lopez to Lakers for D'Angelo Russell & Timofey Mozgov

Its the case for every team in the league though at the moment other than the Cavs, nobody wants to end up like the Knicks with Melo so nobody is going to pay too much to the Pacers. The Cavs can trade Love to a 3rd team, maybe, but he's not that appealing given the contract.


Zach Lowe broke down on his podcast the teams who may roll the dice on trying to convince George to stay, there were some interesting ideas like Portland who has several 1st round picks could trade 2 of them plus Harkless / Aminu and if George walks its not going to be devastating to them. But the deals may not be out there for George.

Some kind of package of 27 & 28, a 2019 / 2020 first round pick from the Lakers + Randle may be enticing. Its all about what the Pacers want, they are driving the ship, what kind of team do they want to be? That will dictate where George goes ultimately.

 

They wont...If the projections are true...they could possibly have close to 30 plus million in space next summer...And that is without trying to parlay another bad contract with a young talent(ie. Deng with Randle...) To already have Paul George come out and state...that he wants to be in LA...I really have to believe that the Pacers are going to try to make the Lakers blink by creating a bidding war with the Celtics.
Lets say for some reason, the Celtics are able to part ways with this years #3 plus Bradley, and a future 1st in exchange for Paul George...they have screwed the Lakers over asap.
However, if the Lakers really want George now...they really need to find a way to get a 3rd team involved in order for the Pacers to get assets now and have Paul George sound and secure in Los Angeles.

If George doesnt come...they will have a ton of cash plus two young players. The Lakers are gonna be just fine. Lebron does what is best for Lebron, and if the Lakers are ready, he will come.

 

If Lakers fans have any brains cells (debatable), they will realize Magic/Pelinka have to remove the trash left behind by Jim Buss. This was a big step. Next summer they will own free agency.

For the Nets, was getting Russell worth absorbing 3 more years of Mozgov's contract when Lopez was expiring next year?

IMO, the trade was a grand slam home run for the Lakers and questionable for the Nets. I'm not a big fan of Russell.

 

The big question is, why would Ainge push his chips all in on George, who is "hell bent" on going to the Lakers. That seems like the riskiest move anyone could do in the league right now, if Ainge after years and years of asset building pushes all in on George for one year and George bounces and goes to the Lakers, Ainge is done in Boston without a doubt. If Ainge is going to go all in, at least get someone who wants to be in Boston or someone whose under contract for 2-3 more years. You're basically rolling the dice on George falling in Love with Boston, the organization and the situation.

It just doesn't make sense, George is one of possibly 4-5 all star caliber players possibly available on the market right now. Why not try and make it work with one who has more years.

Remember, Ainge never, ever overpays for anyone. Its certainly not going to be for one year of George. I think he'd prefer to trade for one superstar with his assets who at least has longer team control and build from there than roll the dice on trying to swing 2 with the possibility of one walking.

George wants to be in LA because its his hometown, and the weather / stars / lifestyle, Boston isn't going to compete with that in the end.

 

They got rid of that Rat of D'angelo. Can't risk him recording the strip clubs when Harden gets there,

 

LMAO at the scouts and media

D'Angelo Russell was the next James Harden coming out of college

BIg fail

 

I agree. The talk all season was they wanted heaven and earth for Lopez and that's why he was still there after the deadline. Moz and Russell minus their 27th is not exactly heaven and earth. Lopez had one year left on his deal so maybe the motivation was to get something in return for him but he was a 20 ppg scorer that added a 3 pt shot this season, the Nets should have at least got a pick out of this trade. i guess D'Angelo could develop but I think the Lakers giving up on him says it all.

 

The fact that the Lakers' plans seem to hinge on getting rid of all their homegrown talent except Ingram without getting anything of worth back (Lopez is meh and a late 1st is worse than a 2nd) just seems wrong. Here's hoping they sh*t the bed in free agency and are forced to develop talent (and then trade it for stars) like the rest of the NBA.

 

You all are forgetting that brook is one of the top 20 centers in world history

 

Strong post
Very strong

 

This is why the point can't be stressed enough that these top 5 picks are more valuable before the draft than after simply by percentages.

The hope trafficking that can be done by the pick potential can have greedy GMs exposing themselves annually.


Boston, with all of those assets, could've had Butler or George for 1.5-2.5 seasons on a cap friendly deal.

Instead Ainge will wind up drafting them out and praying to his god that one of them sniffs the caliber of player that Butler/George are.

 

If Celts don't get Hayward in free agency they will end up drafting out all of those picks because Ainge is a catastrophic pump faker

 

Obviously they trust Clarkson to an extent whilst they draft and develop lonzo

 

Fingers crossed on the Mozgov buyout. He's super underrated

 

Bad move by Lakers. I'm not a fan of trading a young and still developing player as part of a cost cutting move. Lakers are nowhere near competing with the Warriors even if they were to land Paul George today. They should have just kept building with Russell, Ingram, and Ball. You never truly know which player turns out to be the superstar in a youth movement... ask Sam Presti.

Now you've given Nets some hope and a piece to build around. Disgusting!

Grade: F

 

Nets coming along nicely lowkey

 

or hes just not that good bish

 

You can't have Ball & Russell on the same team. Their locker room would combust. Lonzo has extremely unique skills, Russell is essentially a replacement level player to this point whose really not flashed any superb ability. Although Lakers didn't do him any favors throwing him into a terrible situation in his rookie year.

After watching Ball highlights the past hour, I'm totally convinced this guy is going to be a stud player in the NBA. Even with the funky shot, you're basically getting Curry-level skills. As long as he's league average shooter, and I think he'll be better than that, its a slam dunk pick. You can easily build a roster around Ball whereas with Russell, in order to construct a roster around him that could be competitive, he would need to be a ridiculous scorer, 25 ppg level, to be worthy of building around. Maybe he gets there, but he's not moving the needle until he does the way Ball can from day 1.

Ball and Russell going into year one would just be a really bad idea, you can already envision how poor of chemistry those two would have on the court and it could have really stagnated both of their development.

 

Russell was just a top 3 pick that if I'm not mistaken Magic advocated for.... What an idiot.

And so much for PG going to LA to play with DeAngelo.... Sike!