[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

The argument from the Lakers POV would be the Paul George situation from a couple of years ago. They waited until free agency as opposed to making a trade and ended up without the player they wanted. I am not saying the Lakers should make a rash deal. I am saying that they have gone through a similar situation recently.

Originally Posted by Atocep

We're likely going to have months of Lakers speculation since Boston can't make an offer until this offseason. The Pelicans would be pretty stupid to trade him before then.

I agree with Atocep that the Lakers wouldn't be making a rash deal, the Pelicans would be. If you're New Orleans you want someone under team control for 5+ years who has a chance to be a superstar, and unless you're the biggest Brandon Ingram fan left none of the Lakers assets reach the level that Tatum, healthy KP or Zion would be. (And I like Barrett/Ja Morant/maybe Culver & Langford & Kevin Porter's skillset albeit not his attitude, but they don't move the needle in the same way so it's really a one player draft from that standpoint.) (Also, Ainge is hinting more strongly that he would include Tatum, but Jaylen Brown has also played much better since that ugly first 4-6 weeks, and Rozier is showing again that he's actually good as a starter and just sucks as a backup, so a deal centered around those two and some of the plethora of picks - Sacramento's unless it's #1, Clippers if they make the playoffs, Memphis 1-8 protected this year, 1-6 next year, unprotected 2021 on - is still probably better than the Lakers offer though I know some people disagree on that.)

You could include all of Ingram/Ball/Kuzma/Lakers 1st round pick this year that will almost certainly be in the teens, and any combination of future 1st round picks/pick swaps that will probably be late because that would be a team that has LeBron & AD, and not only is there very little path to a superstar there, but that offer will also be there in June unless the Lakers use some of them to trade for a lower tier star like Kemba or Marc Gasol at the deadline. It's why LeBron and Rich Paul are using all their minions like Brian Windhorst to try and spread hilarious Kyrie rumors and get AD traded now before the Celtics can put their offer down. (I also think the Pelicans are pissed at what they perceive to be tampering from LeBron/the Lakers and don't want to send him there at all at this point in time.)

Originally Posted by Johnny93g

I wonder if any of the players that criticized Toronto for not being loyal to DeRozan will have anything to say about Davis not being loyal to the Pelicans....

I think the only player who can really complain about loyalty is Blake Griffin & the Clippers. I know a couple things changed with management (Jerry West coming in), but that free agent pitch was so over the top, and so little changed in the interim between then and when he was traded.

Originally Posted by Atocep

What in the hell has gotten into Jahlil Okafor?

He's always been able to put up points and rebounds when he plays, and he's still such a bad defender the team has been a net negative with him on the floor even as he has been getting numbers because NO has so many big man injuries he's getting minutes and touches.

Btw, somehow he's not even the most surprising resurgence of the last week... Bruno Caboclo showed up in Memphis & is getting 25+ minutes a game and is playing crunch time?!? Technically we are 4 years & change away from that infamous Fran Frischilla comment on draft night

Originally Posted by Logan

There were three hypotheticals in a one sentence post and you chose to ignore all three of them.

Sure, but reading NBA twitter there are just so many Lakers or Knicks fans under any Woj/Lowe/Shams/Dunc'ed On tweet it's driving me a little crazy. It's only slightly more likely than if a Celtic fan tried saying we should trade Kyrie+ like Jaylen for AD then re-sign Kyrie this summer. The KP situation is so messed up right now, because it appears from the outside like Porzingis wants to come back and play soon, but the Knicks want to keep sitting him to increase their draft pick value, but then also until he comes back he has fairly unknowable trade value (and also as an RFA this summer he'd have to agree to a sign & trade & I'm not sure he'd want to go to New Orleans in a swap with draft picks for AD.) You'd think with the smoothing out of the lottery odds and the amount of losses the Knicks have already banked they'd just want him to come back and play when he can, but it's the Knicks.

Btw, I don't think Kyrie is going to the Knicks or trading KP & pick 2-8 for AD without guarantees of re-signing would make much sense, but I do think they have a very real shot at KD this summer or Jimmy Butler as a fallback. Getting the #1 pick is only a 14% chance for even the worst team now, but yeah if they do that changes a lot of things - although I'm still not sure how much sense it would be to trade KP+ young guys in that scenario instead of going with a KP/Zion/Knox frontline and trying to get some better veteran guards.