Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Which Lakers Are Most Likely to Outperform Their Contracts? Or Underperform?
Episode Date: August 11, 2026The question of value is going to be a huge one for the Lakers this season. Especially in the context of which players provide more of it than their salary might suggest. So which guys are most like...ly to outperform their paychecks? The obvious place to start is with the dudes making the least amount of money, but who still have a chance to play an outsized role for the team. Like this year's Marcus Smart. Think players like Ziaire Williams and Matisse Thybulle, as vets playing on minimum deals, or Adou Thiero and Cam Carr playing on rookie scale contracts. But what about guys making a few nickels more? Is Quentin Grimes a good candidate to exceed his salary? Certainly he will get a lot of minutes, and on this team will fill a critical role both as a secondary scorer and a guy expected to guard some dudes on the other end. How about Sexton and Mamu? And then there are the guys at the very top of the food chain. Luka has to be elite, and Reaves has to play like a $40 million player must. But so much of this conversation starts to settle on Walker Kessler, the most controversial deal the Lakers issued this summer. HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: The Lakers need guys to overperform. SEGMENT 2: After the minimum guys, who is next? SEGMENT 3: The Kessler Kunundrum. Photo Credit: Kyle Ross-Imagn Images Everydayer Club If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Odoo Great organizations win because operations matter. And that’s why you should get Odoo. Try for free today at https://Odoo.com/lockedon. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Join all the action at https://FANDUEL.COMto play Daily Dingers and make your free pick on who’s hitting a homer this MLB season. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Which Lakers are most likely to outperform or underperform their contracts this year?
We'll break it down next.
You are Locked-on Lakers.
Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network,
your team every day.
Thanks, everybody for stopping by Locked-on Lakers.
Brian Komeneski, Andy Kaminowski, appreciate you.
Stopping here, whether you are checking out the show live on YouTube,
which we currently are on the Lockdown Lakers YouTube channel
or whether you're a subscriber through Apple,
through iTunes, through Spotify,
however you get your podcast, Andy,
people get their podcasts in all kinds of ways now.
There was an interesting little piece,
a little bit of the way, however you are watching this show too,
that you not just subscribe,
but that you leave likes,
that you leave comments, all of that stuff.
Match that like button, Andy.
Well, frankly, it juices the algorithms in our favor, and we are not above that sort of trickery.
We are frankly below it as far as the bar goes.
So I saw this thing go by on Silver Screen & Roll, I believe it was, our friends over there,
lots of great work that they're doing there on a daily basis.
And one of the things that I saw was a, it was a question about Matisse Thibel and play.
who are, and whether or not Thibble is likely to be a bargain this year and things like that.
And it really got me kind of thinking about the whole roster in general.
And the Lakers are, as we've discussed, Andy, a few times in a few different ways,
are really in a position where they need to find value in the players that they have,
that they've gone out and signed, the guys that they pick up as two-way players.
you know, Arthur Columa
could theoretically matter to the Lakers
or the future Arthur Columas
could theoretically matter to the Lakers
more over the next couple of years than a two-way
player might for say Oklahoma City
or San Antonio,
players like that.
The Lakers desperately need to avoid
more misses paying guys like
Jared Vanderbilt a healthy chunk of money
to maybe or maybe not
be in the rotation to miss
on guys like Dalton Connect.
And it raises sort of this large quest.
When you look at its roster going into this year,
like where are the Lakers likely to find value?
Where are they potentially?
Where could they have players who were going to underperform the money that they're being paid?
Well, I mean, the obvious place to start in terms of outperforming the contracts
would be the veterans minimum guys just because the bar set lower.
But I do think, though, that the two main guys that they have,
have on veterans minimums, Matisse Thibel, and especially Zaire Williams, have a real opportunity
to outperform their contracts in ways that feel particularly impactful. Zaire Williams in particular
is someone that I'm really watching for with this, because I think he has the opportunity for a nice
size role, maybe even I think he could be a live possibility for that fifth starting spot that still
seems in flux.
As we've talked about in a lot of ways, it's really more about
as long as the Jonathan Kaminga saga carries on,
guys like Zaire Williams could be starting for the Lakers.
Sure.
Yeah, that thing didn't end any time soon.
Yeah, we're going to get into that maybe tomorrow.
Our friend Eric Pinkis has a really interesting,
I believe it's a four-team trade to make this happen.
We just didn't have the, we didn't have a starch to do it tonight
because we're just kind of tired of Jonathan Cominga.
Yeah, I would get there. I'm sure we're going to get there. It's August, but I have no desire to talk about this dude anymore. But anyway, Zeyer Williams, I think has a legitimate possibility to get one of the forward starting spots in the lineup, in part because he has an opportunity, I think, to play in his lane within his strengths in ways that those opportunities will be there for him.
For example, in terms of his offensive role, you're looking for him to be a guy that can operate in transition, operate off ball, hit open threes.
The last two years in Brooklyn, he shot about 34% on threes overall, which is obviously not as good as you want it to be.
But at the risk of besmirching his Brooklyn teammates, I am guessing the looks created by Austin Reeves and Colin Sexton, much less Luca
F. and Donchich will be better than the ones that he was working at, working with as a net.
And the looks may be more open than ever. And that really matters because last year,
Zeyer Williams shot almost 44% on wide open threes. A percentage points per possession on
unguarded threes. He was considered very good. The previous season, nearly 40% on wide open
threes. And like, you contrast this to say Jake La Ravia.
Last year, he shot 32% on wide open threes rounding up, which percentage, as you would imagine,
that is considered below average on a points per possession basis.
Those wide open threes, though, are super important on a team where Luca will often, if not always,
draw two defenders.
Austin will often have two defenders.
Walker Kessler, depending on his proximity to the basket, could draw a suck in a second defender.
And like the ability of Zaire Williams to pay off those type of wide open looks is huge in the last couple of seasons.
He's done it well per synergy.
He's been in the 85th percentile for points per possession on cuts, 91st percentile points per possession on dunks.
And then per cleaning the glass last year, he was in the 94th percentile for his position in steel percentage, 70th percentile for block percentage for his position.
and the previous season in Brooklyn, 76 percentile for both steel percentage, block percentage.
And the net's best defensive lineups, again, sliding scale, but they tended to have Zaire Williams in them.
To me, this all signals an opportunity to not just play within your strengths, but actually thrive in them.
And everything that I just mentioned, these are all things that the Lakers need.
Well, it's interesting, like so much what you're talking about.
And with like, especially, you know, there's a whole range of, of salaries here that we're looking at, you know, from, you know, guys outperforming it.
You know, you started with the veterans minimum of Zaire Williams at $2.5 million and Thibald's on that deal and Kavanaugh's on that deal.
Cam Carr is going to make a little over three and a third million this year.
you have your $6 million
guys in La Ravia
and Jaden Hardy
you start getting to the signings they have
this year, you know, Colin Sexton
around 9 million plus
and Vanda we mentioned
Mamu is at 13, Grimes is at 14
and you know this question also applies
to Luca at nearly 50 million,
Austin at 41 and certainly
Walker Kessler who's been getting
a lot of conversation about whether
not the Lakers overpaid, or gave up too much some provocative comments from Zach Lowe over the course of the week about that as well.
When you get though, just focusing still on the guys at the bottom of the salary structure here.
Because that is, I think you're right, like where people tend to think first, most and foremost, like of outperforming.
We'll get to the other end of the spectrum in a second.
This is a lot of this depending on JJ.
and the coaching staff.
Like, do you recognize the things that Williams can do?
Can you put him in a situation where he, you know,
because this is his sixth year, correct?
Yes, this will be his sixth season.
He is pretty well formed, I think, as an NBA player at this point.
You know, you not saying guys can improve or whatever,
but like he's not going to get significantly bigger.
He's not going to get significantly more or less athletic.
You know, like all of these other things.
He's a good athlete.
He's got the skill set that he's got.
And at this point, it's really incumbent on the Lakers coaching staff to be able to plug
that into the situations that allow him to focus on what he does well and try to avoid what he doesn't.
And when you talk about potential guys to outperform, he is absolutely there in the same.
ways I think that Matisse Thibel is there.
Like, you know, we already know what Thiable skill set is.
If he stays healthy and he can help elevate the Lakers defense and disruptive nature
in the same way that they're counting on Walker Kessler to be a backline and a rim protector,
then, you know, if they get 70 games of that or 65 games of that,
it's almost certainly going to be worth more than $2.5 million to the Lakers.
So we'll keep talking about this.
And we'll get into some guys who maybe make a little bit more money,
including the guys, Andy, who make the most money before we're done.
So hang on for that.
We'll do it next.
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So I think, I mean, I think, Andy, you would agree with me about Thibel. Like, you know,
for him, the utility that he can provide the Lakers defensively, you know,
particularly as an off ball player as he has been fairly elite at over the course of his career.
Steals, getting his hand on the ball off, you know, weak side blocks, you know, stuff like that.
Just good things tend to happen when he is on the floor defensively.
That's why he's made a couple of defensive teams.
And it's the health that made him available, you know,
some questions about whether or not he can really get to the level that he once was
because he has been been so banged up.
And then can he shoot well enough to kind of give yourself a 20 minute a night roll?
If he's up around that, you know, 35 to 35% to 40% on the Lakers,
especially on those wide open threes, Andy,
you mentioned.
If he's anywhere near that and stays healthy,
he's going to find a very nice role on this team
and be far more valuable than what they're paying him.
Yeah, and to that point,
he did shoot very well the last couple seasons
in those open and wide open threes.
And his three-point shot in general
was much better in Portland than it had been.
in Philadelphia in two seasons in Portland.
He averaged around 40% from three in the aggregate.
And it was small-ish-sized theater in the sense that he only played, I believe,
45 games in two seasons in Portland.
But his volume, particularly last year, playing around 16 minutes a game, was pretty
legit.
Like he was actually putting up threes at a very good clip for a guy that was in a limited
role.
And that's something in general that I think.
I think JJ Reddick really once, and they were looking to bring in guys that will put up those
shots, like something we talked about a lot last year.
You know, the Lakers in general needed to put up more shots.
Like they very typically lost the possession battles, even when you're taking into account
that they were a team that went to the line a lot.
But they needed to increase the amount of attempts from behind the arc.
And I think Zyre Williams has been pretty willing to do that.
Like he doesn't really have much offensive utility inside the arc,
but he doesn't look to do much inside the ark.
He seems to know his role.
And I think in a lot of ways,
Thibble particularly is like that.
He's, you know, Williams at least attempt occasionally
put the ball on the floor and get to the rim.
Thibble almost never does it.
So he's really, you know, focused on that three point shot.
Yeah, I think with Thibble,
I'm going to be gauging availability more in just, is he healthy as opposed to how many games he plays?
Because it wouldn't surprise me at all.
If they are treating him with kit gloves and there's portions of the season where he doesn't play in back-to-backs and things like that,
just to make sure they can keep him available come postseason.
The other guy that I mean, obviously Cameron Carr and do Thero rookie scale deals,
that's always just an organic opportunity to operate.
perform your contract.
Almost definitionally, if car, I just to finish your point, like if either of those guys
have a rotation role, they're almost definitionally guaranteed to outperform their
contracts.
It's a big reason why it matters.
Those guys play well.
Absolutely.
I'm kind of bullish on Quentin Grimes, if not completely outperforming his deal, like looking
like a $25 million a year player as opposed to, I think he's making around 13.
14, somebody that at the very least seems like a good contract, A, because, you know, small
sample size, but his half season with Luca, the numbers together were very good.
Net in 228 total minutes, the two of them together, 51% from the field, 39 from behind the
arc, plus, plus, minus, 120.7 offensive rating 109.5 defensive net rating of 11.1. I think he's got an
opportunity to, you know, play to a lot of strengths and I think be a more rounded version,
like a well-rounded version of what they had from Marcus Smart last year. Like, I think
smart is more elite at the thing that he's truly best at, like, you know, that type of defensive
communication and disruption and, you know, the defensive intensity that becomes contagious.
but Quentin Grimes is a better balanced player, particularly offensively.
Like he is a far more efficient offensive player than Marcus Smart.
Like it's not even close.
And defensively, I think he will be able to hold his own enough,
especially in a scheme that I think will be, as we talked about,
more about disruption than guarding your man the whole time.
I'm bullish that he's actually going to look pretty good in this role.
I like the Grimes thing.
I think it makes a lot of sense for them.
You know, the Lakers really have made a point to prioritize guys who can put the ball on the floor and pressure the rip.
You know, that's Colin Sexton's done.
I saw some poor optimistic soul on the YouTube chat.
I think it was either at the end of last week earlier this week, something, saying that Sexton was going to
kind of replace the smart role.
No, no, he is not.
The guy thought, you know, he's never, you know,
it's not been what he's been asked to do,
but he's going to, you know, he'll be able to say,
no, there's,
Colin Sexton's a bad defender.
Well, he may be replacing,
he may be replacing Marcus Smart
in the inexplicable decisions role
when he has the possible.
Possibly.
Like in that sense, I mean,
Sexton's decision making at,
times leaves a lot to be desired, just like Marcus often did in the first three quarters.
Right.
But like Sexton is a bad defender.
He is going to be probably a bad defender.
I have no doubt he's going to try to be a better defender and he'll do what he can.
But he's bad at it.
He's been bad at it statistically every year he's been in the NBA.
But what he is really good at, he's a floor spacer.
He's just a legitimate shooter at this point is grand.
He can put a lot of pressure on the rim.
Quentin Grimes can put pressure on.
on the rim. We saw Cam Carr can put pressure on the rim. They've got guys who can shoot a little bit
and guys who can get to the rim. And you know, you add Luca Donchich to that and you add Austin Reeves to that
to players who build a lot of what they do on the ability to get into the paint and cause damage there.
I agree with you. I think, you know, there's a good chance that you're going to look at,
at Quentin Grimes is a guy who says, you know, wow, the Lakers are spending, you know,
8%, 8.5% of their cap space on Grimes, but he plays a much bigger role on this team.
They're getting more value out of that.
And, you know, I think actually, you know, for under 10 million bucks a year,
if Sexton does what he has done historically, you know, on offense, I'm, I am, I have,
no expectations from defensively other than try hard,
do what you can to not screw up the system for everything,
everybody else,
don't take unnecessary risks,
all that stuff.
But if he does what he's been doing,
which is hit a lot of three-point shots when given the opportunity
and get to the rim,
then I actually think the Lakers are going to have a very valuable six-man there
who is going to provide them the kind of offense off the bench
that they really struggled to get last year.
And I think it's going to be really important to them.
I think, you know, Mamu, I'm very optimistic that he's going to slide
kind of right into what they're asking to do.
In the very least, certainly not going to be disappointing.
So much, I think, of what's not starting.
That's exactly where I was going.
It's funny, actually, because I know when you hear this talked about a lot,
like who's going to get that fifth slot that seems right now.
now open to a very competitive training camp, which in of itself, I think could be good for a group
that's coming together, at least having one spot that's being fought over. And, you know, the idea
that Mamu makes the most money of the people he'll be competing with, therefore the money should
or will play a role in dictating this, it should not. Like, if you think the best use of Mamu,
is, you know, for that salary, 13-ish a year is 25 minutes off the bench, then that's your
money's worth. If he plays well in that role, that's a better use of him than playing it
than playing him to a lesser strength simply because then he's starting and it justifies the
salary. If you have a guy who plays 20-something minutes a game as your backup four and your
backup five spot starts and stuff like that, that is a 13 million dollar a year player.
Like the idea that he's, you know, you can't bring Walker Kessler off the bench at 30 million a
year, but you can bring Mamma who off the right.
I was, that's exactly where I was going.
Like if you, if you ask Mammo to do the things that he's meant to do and you don't
overextend him, like, look, it turns out that, you know what, hey, you know, he can
stretch out from 22 minutes a night to 28 minutes of night.
that that's not too much Mamu, then great.
But I think the key to Mamu is going to be finding the other part of this rotation
that allows him to slot where he's been.
Zach Lowe had some really interesting comments about Walker Kessler
that get to this question of value and what might be coming.
and then just larger questions about the wisdom of that transaction.
Plus, it is worth asking, you know,
what about the guys at the very tippy, tippy top of the Lakers payrolls?
We'll do all that next.
So it was, it's been a major point of contention,
I would say, for people who were evaluating the Lakers offseason this year.
A lot of it gets viewed through the prism of whether or not you think
the Walker Kessler move was a good one.
If you think the Lakers kind of nailed it, got the guy that they wanted and all that other stuff,
then you are probably relatively bullish on what the Lakers did this off season.
If you think the Lakers kind of misjudged that for whatever reason,
whether it's because you just don't think Kessler is quite good enough to justify the money they gave him,
or you think they gave up too much to get him.
You might be a little more bearish.
Zach Lowe, talking on the Zach Lowe show,
had this to say about Kessler.
The Lakers paid him $130 million and traded two unprotected first run picks to get them on their team.
I like Walker Kessler as a player.
People can go back and listen to the segment I did about why I think this will actually work decently for the Lakers on both ends of the floor.
There's no question they overpaid for them are now trapped with this team and they have to figure out either this is the team or is there a way to pivot by trading Austin Reeves down the line or something like that because they're out of tradable assets because of the Walker Kessler deal.
There are a couple things going on here.
The first one is, is Walker Kessler going to play to a $30 million valuation.
And you got to remember that's not just raw stats.
That's $30 million to value to this Lakers team.
If he averages, if Kessler averages 13 and 10, but makes an all defensive team,
then he will be worth $30 million.
I don't think there's any question about that.
For this team, given what they need.
And so there are
legitimate questions, though. I'm optimistic
about Kessler and the role he's going to play, and Luke's
ability to make even
average centers look
really, really good. But
a lot of this
question of value pivots
in, you know, you could say, Andy, on
Kessler. Well, it
absolutely does. I mean,
we've said before that
I liked the trade for Kessler.
I think it was expensive,
but I don't think it was outrageously expensive.
Like the two swaps that they gave up to me,
I'm not particularly concerned about
because if they actually end up mattering,
it means things went so catastrophically wrong in this era
that in a lot of ways,
like they almost become irrelevant,
Like so much has gone wrong.
They're lottery tickets.
Right.
And like so much has gone wrong.
Like the disaster is so widespread that what's two first two swaps.
Two firsts feels like the going rate for a type of center that the Lakers think that Kessler is.
And they've wanted him.
It's been an open secret for a few years.
His A.AV actually came in lower than you and I both thought it could be.
And it's certainly in line with centers that I think are at Kessler's level and that maybe by the end of this contract, Kessler could be considered better than.
I do think Zach Lowe and also Kirk Goldsbury, who was doing the show with, they are correct.
And this is something I have said, that Kessler is unproven as a player in games that actually matter on a team with actual goals.
like he's never been,
forgetting in the playoffs,
he's never been on a team
with a 500 record in the NBA.
So how he will respond
to this level of...
Well, but he still hasn't done it.
I mean, I'm not saying it's on walking.
I know, I'm just laughing just because like,
you know, it's so funny.
It's like there are certain teams where, you know,
they're just,
they're so inept.
But like the,
the jazz,
it's such a weird situation
because they absolutely could have
over the last few years.
years, if not finished over 500, they could have gotten, they've had enough talent to get themselves
pretty close. They've just never tried. And so it's going to be very interesting to see Kessler on a
team where they're not actively pumping the brakes on what they're trying to do. Yeah. And
that's a whole different level of scrutiny. It's a whole different level of expectation. Like,
he is going to be, he will be talked about more in.
on Sports Center or NBA today in his first month as a Laker,
then all of his previous seasons as a member of the jazz combined.
Like, I mean, he is going to be in a completely different level of spotlight.
And, you know, I asked both Tony Jones, who covers the jazz for the athletic and David Locke,
locked on jazz, who also does the radio calls, how they thought Kessler would react to this.
And they said, to be honest, they're not sure.
like they think it's a fair open question.
But if Walker Kessler is the guy that the Lakers think he is,
I think they paid a premium for him,
but I don't think it was outrageous.
I also think it's premature to say they're trapped.
They're only trapped if this doesn't go well.
If it's going well, they're not trapped at all.
And it goes back to my credo of the offseason.
Rob has to be right.
because this is the first time in a while Rob's taken really big, aggressive swings and signed
contracts of permanence.
He has to be right.
If he's right, then are they going to have all the maneuverability and flexibility that
they're like?
No, because they are low on, they are low on tradable assets in terms of draft picks.
But if he's correct about these players, they're not going to be low on, they're not
to be low on assets entirely because those players should be tradable.
The players should be tradable.
I mean, like we've sort of discussed a little bit, there's the problem of trading players
that you need for other players that you need.
It's how, you know, making sure you don't go backwards to go forwards.
But the part that I find really interesting about this debate, and like, by the way,
like, so much of this value conversation is predicated on the assumption, you know,
that Luca is going to give you, Luke is making.
50 million this year that he's going to give you a lot more than he's going to be
luca dantsch and that austin in his first season of uh no longer being uh tm the most the best
contract in basketball uh all rights reserved um that he performs at the level you know pre
injury like basically where he was like okay all star caliber i don't know if you made of the all
star team but whatever all star caliber he's got to be that guy again uh maybe it a little bit better
No, no, not even maybe.
Not even maybe.
He has to be better.
He has.
When you're getting paid at that level of Austin,
he has to be better even than the best parts of last season.
There's no maybe.
So you put those things together.
Those things are given.
So the Lakers aren't going anywhere if those guys don't meet,
at the very least, meet their contractual level that they're being paid at.
The part about the trap thing, I think, is interesting too because like, it's, I agree with you.
It's true.
But the lake workers were going to be trapped to, you know, in the way that Zach is talking about,
no matter who they went after.
If they, if they use that on a wing and, you know, use the assets to, you know, I think I'd rather pay,
I think you're more likely to get what you want with Kessler at that salary level than maybe Peyton Watson.
Certainly an argument can be made for it.
You are paying more speculatively on Peyton Watson to give him 25, to give him the money you would need to get him away from Denver, that $25 to $30 million, because $20 million is not going to do it.
You know, like you got to really overpay for Peyton Watson.
and to give up the draft picks or whatever else might have gone into a sign and trade.
No matter what the Lakers did to fill that space, it was going to cost them those picks.
And I agree with you.
The pick swaps are window dressing to a lot of this.
And even the picks themselves aren't crazy valuable because the expectation is that the Lakers are going to have Luca.
They're going to have Reeves.
They're going to have like they're going to be drafting somewhere in the mid-20s for the next
five or six years.
And so even those picks aren't crazy valuable.
So anybody you get that's good is going to be two first rounders, give or take.
And if not, you're spending individual first rounders on lesser players.
So you're still to use that idea trapped.
And so like you say, if Kessler plays well and provides them what they need as a backline
for that really, really explosive back court.
And a little bit of, you know, especially like cheap points,
offensive rebounding, that kind of thing.
That's value.
And it's even more valuable for this group.
Yeah.
I mean, really, I mean, like we talked about before,
they're only trapped if things are not going well.
Like even what might be a relative lack of maneuverability,
if things are going well,
they may not necessarily even want to maneuver in the first place.
But if things don't go well with the decisions that they made this offseason, in a lot of ways, it may end up more commentary on Rob's style of team building and the way they put all of the eggs in the cap space and free agency basket, which by def, and then you're adding a whole different level with Walker Kessler, who's a restricted free agent.
And that's even more complicated to work out of deal with.
Like Walker Kessler as a sign and trade restricted free agent,
like it's the first time it's happened in a while.
Oh, yeah.
By definition, if you are going the like extreme cap space free agent
or trading into your cap space or in the case of Lakers,
both very all in, by definition, you're going to end up paying a lot
because you have to.
especially in an off season,
that it's the first time you really are going to be building around Luca
as the unquestioned leader and franchise base and most important player.
LeBron is no longer here.
There's no longer that dynamic of how do you balance his time here with Luca moving,
but like all of that stuff.
And all the can kicking and all of the stalling in the last couple of seasons
before the Luca deal when it was very clear,
they had given up on the LeBron.
AD era and thought that window had closed, but they didn't have the Cajonis to just move off it.
So they were just biding time hoping something would eventually come their way like Luka Danchich.
But like they couldn't do it anymore.
They had to make big moves this off season.
They made pretty transformative moves.
And both of us on balance like what they did.
We'll see how it works out.
But if it doesn't work out in a lot of ways, it's just as much a commentary.
on the previous seasons leading up to it and Rob's general approach to team building and sort of how he defines
optionality, then a lot of the individual decisions themselves.
Well, that and the, you know, the path that they got that they put him on this way, like,
I think if I understand what you're saying, it's like it's, this is the way they did it this
offseason is the result of the previous six or seven years of,
of transactions and the choices that they made that.
They put them themselves in a position where they kind of had to approach this offseason
and the way they did because of the choices that came before.
I mean, the Russell Westbrook, this, you know, trade will forever be the original sin
of this particular management group.
And so the value equation is always an interesting prism to look at these things through.
So it's a good shorthand for it.
Real quick, too.
I mean, just the idea of giving up those two firsts, it wouldn't necessarily seem as risky if the Lakers hadn't burned through so many previous assets and had to use some assets to wiggle their way out of bad decisions and things like that.
In a vacuum, if somebody asked, is our two first round picks and two swaps too much to give up for, you know, a front line, the Lakers are.
saying, you know, all defense caliber center, the answer would be no.
But if you're looking at it through the prism of they ain't got much left over, then again,
high wire rack, risky.
It's what you have, you know, it's not Kessler's fault.
They didn't have anything left to trade.
But like also, too, the same thing happens.
It's like, oh, you used all that on Walker Kessler.
Okay, who else was I going to use it on?
There aren't a lot of choices and people out there who are,
You know, it's not like they passed up Nikola Yokic and, you know,
picked Walker Kessler instead.
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