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Dennis_D
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 Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:19 pm Post subject: Could another team follow the same steps as the Lakers did? (LONG) |
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In a piece that got panned on this board for multiple reasons, Bill Simmons wrote:
| Quote: | The 2009 Lakers were built the same way someone goes on a three-hour craps run. In other words, don't even think about duplicating it. Seven solid "What if that coin flip had turned up tails instead of heads?" moments shaped the team. Namely, what if Jackson hadn't developed a relationship with Jeanie Buss? (No way he comes back to deal with Kobe again otherwise.) What if Anthony Carter's agent hadn't forgotten to send in his contract in time during the summer of 2003, creating enough cap space for Miami to sign Odom as a free agent, then giving Miami enough pieces to trade for Shaq a year later? What if the Lakers had traded Odom like they almost did about 35,000 times? What if Kobe hadn't blocked the Chicago trade -- and he did -- right before the 2007-08 season because the Bulls were giving up too much? What if Chris Wallace hadn't given them Gasol for 30 cents on the dollar? What if Otis Smith hadn't done the same in giving away Ariza? And what if Fisher's daughter hadn't fallen ill, forcing an unprecedented situation in which Utah released him from his deal so he could play for the Lakers?
(That's seven "what ifs." Seven. Amazing. The Chicago part remains the most incredible. You forget how close that was; I don't think I saw it explored once during the Finals.) |
I disagree with this, some parts more than others. I don't see any point starting the discussion until after the Shaq trade because that was when the team started rebuilding. Post-trade, the Lakers had a great player in Kobe, two good players in Odom and Butler and a whole bunch of expansion team fodder. Turning that into a championship quality team in 3 1/2 years is amazing and worth looking at in detail.
Here are the key moves that the Lakers made in decreasing order of difficulty:
1. Extremely Difficult - Having a 26 year old All-NBAer in Kobe Bryant
There are only a handful of young, first team NBA quality in the players in the league and they almost never leave their teams. Mitch Kupchak was very fortunate to inherit one from Jerry West. The 2010 free agent madness is because teams think they might have a chance at getting one in LeBron and Wade, but Cleveland and Miami can offer them more money than any other team.
2. Extremely Difficult - Drafting a quality 7' center in Bynum while having talent on your team
Quality centers aren't in every draft and rarely last beyond the first few picks, so typically they only go to teams that are one of the worst in the league. The Lakers were able to get Bynum because he was a high schooler who shut down his workouts once he got a promise from the Lakers. Other teams didn't know enough about him to take him earlier. With the minimum draft age rule that came into effect the year after he was drafted, today another Bynum would have played at least one year of college ball and he wouldn't have fallen to #10. Bynum wasn't a big contributor to this championship run, but he makes the Lakers' future bright.
3. Difficult - Acquiring an All-Star sidekick in Gasol through a trade
The 2009 All-Star game featured the following recently traded players: Chauncey Billups, Pau Gasol, Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, Devin Harris and Mo Williams. All-Stars typically get traded when their team is on their way down. The All-Star keeps the team winning enough to prevent them from getting a high draft pick and his contract keeps the team from being able to pursue top notch free agents. Therefore, the team decides they will be better off moving the All-Star. The key to landing such an All-Star is to have an expiring contract, young talent and/or draft picks. The Lakers had the biggest expiring contract in the NBA and two promising draft picks in Marc Gasol and Javaris Critterton (who hadn't done much that season for the Lakers, but had had an excellent summer league). The Lakers had the most to offer when Memphis decided that it was in their best interest to trade Pau Gasol.
4. Hard - signing a quality veteran free agent PG in Fisher
Fisher was a great fit for the Lakers because of his triangle experience and his longtime friendship with Kobe and he was the pick of a weak FA crop at PG. Of all the positions, PG is were veteran savvy is most appreciated by teams. The Lakers were very fortunate that Fisher was available - he was available because he convinced Utah to let him out of his contract because of his daughter's cancer.
5. Not Hard - acquiring a defensive SF in Ariza from someone's bench
Contrary to what Sky and Mike might say, most teams have little interest in defensive SF's. For most teams, the wing positions provide the offense and bigs provide the defense. The benefits a defensive specialist at SF provides on defense doesn't usually offset the loss on the offensive side. Bruce Bowen didn't have much of a career until he joined the Spurs team with Tim Duncan at PF. Ariza had fallen out of the Magic's rotation and they were probably thrilled to get some offensive punch for him. The Lakers were interested in a defensive SF because they had enough offensive punch from Bryant, Bynum and Odom. What makes the trade now look so lopsided is that Ariza's offensive improved so much once he became a Laker.
So could another team do as the Lakers did? I think it would be difficult, but not for the reasons Simmons gave. Again, the major problem most teams would have is that they don't have a young all-NBA player to build around. Beyond that, the Lakers got a couple of lucky breaks, but nothing as extraordinary as Simmons claimed.
What Simmons skipped over is that the Lakers were able to compete for the championship because of the solid, steady job Mitch Kupchack did as GM , particularly since the Shaq trade. Here is the most important things I think Kupchak did right:
1. Got value from almost every first/early second draft pick
In the 7 drafts since he took over, Kupchak has gotten value from every draft pick 51 or higher (12 in all) except Von Wafer and Sun Yue (and the jury is still out on him). That is just amazing and is really the secret to Mitch's success. The trades for Gasol and Ariza don't happen without his skill to turn draft picks into value. Part of this is good drafting and part of this is skill in re-signing players. Even his big bust Kareem Rush, he managed to get two 2nd round picks for. Ronny Turiaf provide some value for the short period he was with the Lakers but the Lakers had to let him go because the team was just too loaded to keep him. I think Brian Cook is an enlightening example - many people think he was a poor pick and many people were enraged when he was re-signed. However, there is always a market for young, reasonably priced bench talent and Kupchak was able to flip him for Ariza (Orlando would later trade him in part of a deal to get Rafer Alston).
2. Didn't make trades unless he was sure it made the Lakers better (or "Don't Panic!")
With the exception of the trade for Kwame, Kupchak waited until he was getting more talent than he traded before making a trade. There were lots of times when there was pressure to make a trade, such as after Kobe's rampage and when trade rumors were hot and heavy about Jermaine O'Neal and Jason Kidd. Kupchak refused to deal just to be able he said he did something. By keeping his powder dry, he had the resources he needed to pull the trigger on the deals that made the Lakers champions.
3. Made deals that required technical skill to pull off
Both the Gasol and Ariza trades required technical skill in order to make the deals happen. With the Gasol trade, Kupchak pulled McKie out of retirement and gave him millions of dollars to fly to Memphis for a few days in order to make the trade work. With the Ariza trade, Cook's BYC status made him almost impossible to trade by Kupchak figured out how to pair him with Evans to take advantage of Orlando's trade exemption. Kupchak set up the acquiring of Evans by trading Rush for draft picks and then found a great use of the ensuing trade exemption. We don't hear about the deals that teams want to make but they just couldn't get to work under the salary. With Kupchak, we just hear about the deals.
4. Focused on whether a role player's skill set matched the Lakers need instead of on their stats
Prior to his signing with the Lakers had a poor statistical year with Utah, shooting only 38.2% and 30.8% from 3. Ariza hadn't had much success in his first 2 seasons and was sliding to the end of the bench before the Lakers acquired him. Shannon Brown hadn't done much on 3 different teams before the Lakers acquired him. But they all had skill sets that matched what the Lakers needed. At the same time, he didn't acquire highly touted players that didn't have a skill set that matched the Lakers need (unless he could get them for dirt cheap - see below).
5. Acquired talent when the opportunity presented itself even if it didn't make sense at the time
When was the Lakers turn to draft with the 26th pick in the 2006 draft, they made an odd choice in taking Jordan Farmar. The short, uptempo guard didn't fit the mold of a triangle PG. James White was a much better fit, but Farmar had more talent. Farmar may not be a long term solution at PG, but he has been much more valuable than White would have been. A back up SG was pretty low down the list of Laker needs on the 2006 draft day, but Kupchak couldn't resist picking up Maurice Evans for a song (and a 51st pick). Evans would become the main piece in the trade for Ariza. Getting Shannon Brown when the Lakers already had two good PG's didn't make much sense, but now the Lakers can use Farmar as a trade piece. You can always trade talent for other talent that better fits your needs, so Kupchak was wise to pounce on every opportunity to acquire talent that came along.
6. Didn't let hope blind him to the weaknesses of talented players
I have seen so many posts arguing that the Lakers should acquire Artest. Yes, a Artest acquisition could have been a home run, but more likely it would have been a disaster. Yes, Jermaine O'Neal could have retained his All-Star form if the Lakers acquired him, but it wasn't likely. Coming to the Lakers could have rejuvenated Jason Kidd, but Father Time would most likely continue to slow him down. Just because a trade could turn out great doesn't mean its worth doing.
7. Avoided MLE signings
Every offseason, fans scream for the Lakers to sign someone to the full MLE and almost every offseason, the Lakers declined to do so. Hollinger once had an article about how big dollar free agents don't play up to their contracts 70-80% of the time. Radmanovic was the only Laker full MLE signing during Kupchack's reign and he too didn't play up to his new contract. I am thrilled they were able to dump him for Shannon Brown (and NBA champion benchwarmer Adam Morrison). MLE's that don't play up to their contract become cap space vampires that prevent the team from acquiring other talent. With the exception of Radmanovic, Kupchak kept to 2-3 year free agent contracts, so the risk to the team was minimal. |
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The_Dyn@sty
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent post. It brings to light just what an awesome job Mitch Kupchak has done as a GM, despite the naysayers when things were gloomy in Laker land. |
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Vishnu
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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Nice post 
Mitch has done a great job. I'm glad he'll be here for a while. |
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RCS926
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Good stuff. |
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Megatron24
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Portland could do it |
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activeverb
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:45 pm Post subject: Re: Could another team follow the same steps as the Lakers did? (LONG) |
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| Dennis_D wrote: | In a piece that got panned on this board for multiple reasons, Bill Simmons wrote:
| Quote: | The 2009 Lakers were built the same way someone goes on a three-hour craps run. In other words, don't even think about duplicating it. Seven solid "What if that coin flip had turned up tails instead of heads?" moments shaped the team. Namely, what if Jackson hadn't developed a relationship with Jeanie Buss? (No way he comes back to deal with Kobe again otherwise.) What if Anthony Carter's agent hadn't forgotten to send in his contract in time during the summer of 2003, creating enough cap space for Miami to sign Odom as a free agent, then giving Miami enough pieces to trade for Shaq a year later? What if the Lakers had traded Odom like they almost did about 35,000 times? What if Kobe hadn't blocked the Chicago trade -- and he did -- right before the 2007-08 season because the Bulls were giving up too much? What if Chris Wallace hadn't given them Gasol for 30 cents on the dollar? What if Otis Smith hadn't done the same in giving away Ariza? And what if Fisher's daughter hadn't fallen ill, forcing an unprecedented situation in which Utah released him from his deal so he could play for the Lakers?
(That's seven "what ifs." Seven. Amazing. The Chicago part remains the most incredible. You forget how close that was; I don't think I saw it explored once during the Finals.) |
I disagree with this, some parts more than others. . |
It's a silly analysis because any successful tends to be on a series of what if-scenarios. |
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Laker Lurker
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:01 pm Post subject: Re: Could another team follow the same steps as the Lakers did? (LONG) |
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| Dennis_D wrote: | In a piece that got panned on this board for multiple reasons, Bill Simmons wrote:
| Quote: | The 2009 Lakers were built the same way someone goes on a three-hour craps run. In other words, don't even think about duplicating it. Seven solid "What if that coin flip had turned up tails instead of heads?" moments shaped the team. Namely, what if Jackson hadn't developed a relationship with Jeanie Buss? (No way he comes back to deal with Kobe again otherwise.) What if Anthony Carter's agent hadn't forgotten to send in his contract in time during the summer of 2003, creating enough cap space for Miami to sign Odom as a free agent, then giving Miami enough pieces to trade for Shaq a year later? What if the Lakers had traded Odom like they almost did about 35,000 times? What if Kobe hadn't blocked the Chicago trade -- and he did -- right before the 2007-08 season because the Bulls were giving up too much? What if Chris Wallace hadn't given them Gasol for 30 cents on the dollar? What if Otis Smith hadn't done the same in giving away Ariza? And what if Fisher's daughter hadn't fallen ill, forcing an unprecedented situation in which Utah released him from his deal so he could play for the Lakers?
(That's seven "what ifs." Seven. Amazing. The Chicago part remains the most incredible. You forget how close that was; I don't think I saw it explored once during the Finals.) |
I disagree with this, some parts more than others. I don't see any point starting the discussion until after the Shaq trade because that was when the team started rebuilding. Post-trade, the Lakers had a great player in Kobe, two good players in Odom and Butler and a whole bunch of expansion team fodder. Turning that into a championship quality team in 3 1/2 years is amazing and worth looking at in detail.
Here are the key moves that the Lakers made in decreasing order of difficulty:
1. Extremely Difficult - Having a 26 year old All-NBAer in Kobe Bryant
There are only a handful of young, first team NBA quality in the players in the league and they almost never leave their teams. Mitch Kupchak was very fortunate to inherit one from Jerry West. The 2010 free agent madness is because teams think they might have a chance at getting one in LeBron and Wade, but Cleveland and Miami can offer them more money than any other team.
2. Extremely Difficult - Drafting a quality 7' center in Bynum while having talent on your team
Quality centers aren't in every draft and rarely last beyond the first few picks, so typically they only go to teams that are one of the worst in the league. The Lakers were able to get Bynum because he was a high schooler who shut down his workouts once he got a promise from the Lakers. Other teams didn't know enough about him to take him earlier. With the minimum draft age rule that came into effect the year after he was drafted, today another Bynum would have played at least one year of college ball and he wouldn't have fallen to #10. Bynum wasn't a big contributor to this championship run, but he makes the Lakers' future bright.
3. Difficult - Acquiring an All-Star sidekick in Gasol through a trade
The 2009 All-Star game featured the following recently traded players: Chauncey Billups, Pau Gasol, Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, Devin Harris and Mo Williams. All-Stars typically get traded when their team is on their way down. The All-Star keeps the team winning enough to prevent them from getting a high draft pick and his contract keeps the team from being able to pursue top notch free agents. Therefore, the team decides they will be better off moving the All-Star. The key to landing such an All-Star is to have an expiring contract, young talent and/or draft picks. The Lakers had the biggest expiring contract in the NBA and two promising draft picks in Marc Gasol and Javaris Critterton (who hadn't done much that season for the Lakers, but had had an excellent summer league). The Lakers had the most to offer when Memphis decided that it was in their best interest to trade Pau Gasol.
4. Hard - signing a quality veteran free agent PG in Fisher
Fisher was a great fit for the Lakers because of his triangle experience and his longtime friendship with Kobe and he was the pick of a weak FA crop at PG. Of all the positions, PG is were veteran savvy is most appreciated by teams. The Lakers were very fortunate that Fisher was available - he was available because he convinced Utah to let him out of his contract because of his daughter's cancer.
5. Not Hard - acquiring a defensive SF in Ariza from someone's bench
Contrary to what Sky and Mike might say, most teams have little interest in defensive SF's. For most teams, the wing positions provide the offense and bigs provide the defense. The benefits a defensive specialist at SF provides on defense doesn't usually offset the loss on the offensive side. Bruce Bowen didn't have much of a career until he joined the Spurs team with Tim Duncan at PF. Ariza had fallen out of the Magic's rotation and they were probably thrilled to get some offensive punch for him. The Lakers were interested in a defensive SF because they had enough offensive punch from Bryant, Bynum and Odom. What makes the trade now look so lopsided is that Ariza's offensive improved so much once he became a Laker.
So could another team do as the Lakers did? I think it would be difficult, but not for the reasons Simmons gave. Again, the major problem most teams would have is that they don't have a young all-NBA player to build around. Beyond that, the Lakers got a couple of lucky breaks, but nothing as extraordinary as Simmons claimed.
What Simmons skipped over is that the Lakers were able to compete for the championship because of the solid, steady job Mitch Kupchack did as GM , particularly since the Shaq trade. Here is the most important things I think Kupchak did right:
1. Got value from almost every first/early second draft pick
In the 7 drafts since he took over, Kupchak has gotten value from every draft pick 51 or higher (12 in all) except Von Wafer and Sun Yue (and the jury is still out on him). That is just amazing and is really the secret to Mitch's success. The trades for Gasol and Ariza don't happen without his skill to turn draft picks into value. Part of this is good drafting and part of this is skill in re-signing players. Even his big bust Kareem Rush, he managed to get two 2nd round picks for. Ronny Turiaf provide some value for the short period he was with the Lakers but the Lakers had to let him go because the team was just too loaded to keep him. I think Brian Cook is an enlightening example - many people think he was a poor pick and many people were enraged when he was re-signed. However, there is always a market for young, reasonably priced bench talent and Kupchak was able to flip him for Ariza (Orlando would later trade him in part of a deal to get Rafer Alston).
2. Didn't make trades unless he was sure it made the Lakers better (or "Don't Panic!")
With the exception of the trade for Kwame, Kupchak waited until he was getting more talent than he traded before making a trade. There were lots of times when there was pressure to make a trade, such as after Kobe's rampage and when trade rumors were hot and heavy about Jermaine O'Neal and Jason Kidd. Kupchak refused to deal just to be able he said he did something. By keeping his powder dry, he had the resources he needed to pull the trigger on the deals that made the Lakers champions.
3. Made deals that required technical skill to pull off
Both the Gasol and Ariza trades required technical skill in order to make the deals happen. With the Gasol trade, Kupchak pulled McKie out of retirement and gave him millions of dollars to fly to Memphis for a few days in order to make the trade work. With the Ariza trade, Cook's BYC status made him almost impossible to trade by Kupchak figured out how to pair him with Evans to take advantage of Orlando's trade exemption. Kupchak set up the acquiring of Evans by trading Rush for draft picks and then found a great use of the ensuing trade exemption. We don't hear about the deals that teams want to make but they just couldn't get to work under the salary. With Kupchak, we just hear about the deals.
4. Focused on whether a role player's skill set matched the Lakers need instead of on their stats
Prior to his signing with the Lakers had a poor statistical year with Utah, shooting only 38.2% and 30.8% from 3. Ariza hadn't had much success in his first 2 seasons and was sliding to the end of the bench before the Lakers acquired him. Shannon Brown hadn't done much on 3 different teams before the Lakers acquired him. But they all had skill sets that matched what the Lakers needed. At the same time, he didn't acquire highly touted players that didn't have a skill set that matched the Lakers need (unless he could get them for dirt cheap - see below).
5. Acquired talent when the opportunity presented itself even if it didn't make sense at the time
When was the Lakers turn to draft with the 26th pick in the 2006 draft, they made an odd choice in taking Jordan Farmar. The short, uptempo guard didn't fit the mold of a triangle PG. James White was a much better fit, but Farmar had more talent. Farmar may not be a long term solution at PG, but he has been much more valuable than White would have been. A back up SG was pretty low down the list of Laker needs on the 2006 draft day, but Kupchak couldn't resist picking up Maurice Evans for a song (and a 51st pick). Evans would become the main piece in the trade for Ariza. Getting Shannon Brown when the Lakers already had two good PG's didn't make much sense, but now the Lakers can use Farmar as a trade piece. You can always trade talent for other talent that better fits your needs, so Kupchak was wise to pounce on every opportunity to acquire talent that came along.
6. Didn't let hope blind him to the weaknesses of talented players
I have seen so many posts arguing that the Lakers should acquire Artest. Yes, a Artest acquisition could have been a home run, but more likely it would have been a disaster. Yes, Jermaine O'Neal could have retained his All-Star form if the Lakers acquired him, but it wasn't likely. Coming to the Lakers could have rejuvenated Jason Kidd, but Father Time would most likely continue to slow him down. Just because a trade could turn out great doesn't mean its worth doing.
7. Avoided MLE signings
Every offseason, fans scream for the Lakers to sign someone to the full MLE and almost every offseason, the Lakers declined to do so. Hollinger once had an article about how big dollar free agents don't play up to their contracts 70-80% of the time. Radmanovic was the only Laker full MLE signing during Kupchack's reign and he too didn't play up to his new contract. I am thrilled they were able to dump him for Shannon Brown (and NBA champion benchwarmer Adam Morrison). MLE's that don't play up to their contract become cap space vampires that prevent the team from acquiring other talent. With the exception of Radmanovic, Kupchak kept to 2-3 year free agent contracts, so the risk to the team was minimal. |
You could have put
"not being the Lakers. (short)" |
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Dennis_D
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:14 pm Post subject: Re: Could another team follow the same steps as the Lakers did? (LONG) |
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| activeverb wrote: | | It's a silly analysis because any successful tends to be on a series of what if-scenarios. |
I think there are some GM's that just hit a lucky streak. They had huge success, may be even won several championships, but they didn't consistently make smart moves and now the players that came in during their lucky streak have gotten old and their team is falling apart.
The Spurs success came from winning the lottery the year Tim Duncan came out and from two great draft picks of international players (Ginobili and Parker). But the Spurs haven't had any drafting success outside of those three players, haven't traded for or signed any young talent and most of the team is past their prime. They lost in the first round this year and their window is looking to close.
Joe Dumars had some great moves to build a championship team, but he had some headscratchers during that time (drafting Rodney White and Darko Milicic) and five years after winning their championship went 39-43.
Geoff Petrie of the Kings got a strong reputation when he built a 61 win team. But they have gotten steadily worse for the last 7 years and put up the worst record in the NBA.
So it's fair to ask if Kupchak was just lucky instead of good. But it is wrong to cherry pick your facts to support your conclusion that he was lucky. |
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kenkoy
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent post...but didn't they spend the MLE on Vlade Divac's return? |
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cbear
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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I give Mitch tons of credit, for NOT trading Kobe, for NOT trading LO, for getting Ariza and Fisher.
But I don't think any of that would have mattered if Memphis hadn't gone looney and handed us Pau on a plate! I don't know if you can ever count on a team doing something like that (if you're thinking of copying the Laker blueprint). |
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Lakers#1Team
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Great post! This shows the creativity Mitch had in doing some of these deals. It would be hard to duplicate but not because Mitch was luckier than others. How lucky were the Celtics to get Garnett? |
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grimmz4764
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Lakers#1Team wrote: | | Great post! This shows the creativity Mitch had in doing some of these deals. It would be hard to duplicate but not because Mitch was luckier than others. How lucky were the Celtics to get Garnett? |
Seriously, the Celtics had to drop to the #5 pick even though they had like a 25% chance of getting the 1st or 2nd pick. Seattle ended up with the #2 pick which allowed them to dump Ray Allen for relatively little. Kg's tenure in Minnesota was way past due to be over and the GM happened to be a crooked ex-Celtic. James Posey happened to fall out of favor with Pat Riley just one year after winning a championship with them and also being called lazy and fat by Riley, which greatly lowered his value on the free agent market.
If the Celtics had won the #1 pick, they'd be stuck with Greg "Mr. Glass" Oden, probably would have traded Crybaby Pierce by now and would be chanting MVP for Kobe like they did before they hit the jackpot. |
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LakerSanity
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Dennis_D
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Lakers#1Team wrote: | | How lucky were the Celtics to get Garnett |
It wasn't lucky, it's was an inside heist. The Lakers offered anybody not named Kobe. Say Odom, Bynum, Turiaf and Farmar, plus the #19 pick in the 2007 draft and their #1 from the 2009 draft. The Celtics offered Jefferson (comparable to Bynum), an expiring contract in Theo Ratliff, their 2009 draft pick and then none of their top 6 players. We are talking bench players off a 24-58 team. There was a Minny #1 pick traded back, but with the restrictions on the pick it was most likely going to become a second rounder in like 2012. McHale did Ainge a favor by taking the bench players as it freed up cap room for the Celtics to sign veteran free agents. Of the three other players that Minny got, Ryan Gomes was the best. He was an undersized PF that had a PER of 13.7 before being traded and a PER of 12.5 last season. Sebastian Telfair had flopped with Portland and Boston. He had a PER of 8.6 before being trade and a PER of 10.8 last season. Gerald Green was so bad that Minny didn't pick up his option and he left after 29 bad games.
I don't know if McHale decide to place his loyalty to the Celtics ahead of the his loyalty to the T-Wolves or if he just refused to deal with the hated Lakers and the Celtics were his only other choice, but there is no way anybody can think the Celtics' offer was anywhere as good as the Lakers' offer. Now, if the Celtics had offered Jefferson, Perkins and Rondo I wouldn't have anything to say, but the Celtics wouldn't have won the championship. |
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Sky
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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Superb post Dennis.
1. Hall of Famer - credit: West
2. Draft promising center - credit: Lester-Jimmy-Kupchak in that order. Lester is the one that saw the talent potential and pushed for it.
3. Pau - credit: Dr. Buss, no other owner was willing to take all that salary on.
4. Fisher - credit: Larry Miller and Fisher. Very classy move by Miller. RIP.
5. Ariza - credit: Mitch.
You can claim it's not hard to get a defense first 3 but that trade was a ski mask job and represented a sea change in Kupchak's approach. He dealt offense-first duplication for defense-first athleticism. First time Mitch ever did that. And look at the results. That was proof of Kupchak finally valuing the speed, athleticsm, defense skillset and seeing the need to fill that roster crater.
It's not hard to get a defense first 3 but it is hard to get a young athletic long defense first 3. Clubs typically refuse to let a young athlete go. Thankfully for us Otis Smith was willing. Oops.
Kupchak was content to acquire offense first defense last in the draft and free agency for years, it's when he started valuing physcial skillsets and 2-way potential that the Laker fate changed. Bynum. Ariza. Shannon. Then mix that with leadership from Fisher, Kobe maturing, Gasol making everything better and it fell into place.
Mitch learned the truth - that balance wins championships. Offense-defense, youth-leadership, inside-outside, athleticism-iq, physical-tri fit. His early years were offense, outside and iq tri fits, then balance was found when they finally valued the physcial skills and added defense, youth and athleticism. Balance won the ring. |
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City_Dawg
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Dennis_D wrote: |
I don't know if McHale decide to place his loyalty to the Celtics ahead of the his loyalty to the T-Wolves or if he just refused to deal with the hated Lakers and the Celtics were his only other choice, but there is no way anybody can think the Celtics' offer was anywhere as good as the Lakers' offer. Now, if the Celtics had offered Jefferson, Perkins and Rondo I wouldn't have anything to say, but the Celtics wouldn't have won the championship. |
Ainge called him and said : "HELP!"and the rest is history
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mirak
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:42 pm Post subject: Re: Could another team follow the same steps as the Lakers did? (LONG) |
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| activeverb wrote: | | Dennis_D wrote: | In a piece that got panned on this board for multiple reasons, Bill Simmons wrote:
| Quote: | The 2009 Lakers were built the same way someone goes on a three-hour craps run. In other words, don't even think about duplicating it. Seven solid "What if that coin flip had turned up tails instead of heads?" moments shaped the team. Namely, what if Jackson hadn't developed a relationship with Jeanie Buss? (No way he comes back to deal with Kobe again otherwise.) What if Anthony Carter's agent hadn't forgotten to send in his contract in time during the summer of 2003, creating enough cap space for Miami to sign Odom as a free agent, then giving Miami enough pieces to trade for Shaq a year later? What if the Lakers had traded Odom like they almost did about 35,000 times? What if Kobe hadn't blocked the Chicago trade -- and he did -- right before the 2007-08 season because the Bulls were giving up too much? What if Chris Wallace hadn't given them Gasol for 30 cents on the dollar? What if Otis Smith hadn't done the same in giving away Ariza? And what if Fisher's daughter hadn't fallen ill, forcing an unprecedented situation in which Utah released him from his deal so he could play for the Lakers?
(That's seven "what ifs." Seven. Amazing. The Chicago part remains the most incredible. You forget how close that was; I don't think I saw it explored once during the Finals.) |
I disagree with this, some parts more than others. . |
It's a silly analysis because any successful tends to be on a series of what if-scenarios. |
Bingo. Simmons could have done the same analysis on the improbable moves that brought Kobe and Shaq to LA. |
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24KaratGold
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 9:47 pm Post subject: Re: Could another team follow the same steps as the Lakers did? (LONG) |
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| Dennis_D wrote: | | activeverb wrote: | | It's a silly analysis because any successful tends to be on a series of what if-scenarios. |
I think there are some GM's that just hit a lucky streak. They had huge success, may be even won several championships, but they didn't consistently make smart moves and now the players that came in during their lucky streak have gotten old and their team is falling apart.
The Spurs success came from winning the lottery the year Tim Duncan came out and from two great draft picks of international players (Ginobili and Parker). But the Spurs haven't had any drafting success outside of those three players, haven't traded for or signed any young talent and most of the team is past their prime. They lost in the first round this year and their window is looking to close.
Joe Dumars had some great moves to build a championship team, but he had some headscratchers during that time (drafting Rodney White and Darko Milicic) and five years after winning their championship went 39-43.
Geoff Petrie of the Kings got a strong reputation when he built a 61 win team. But they have gotten steadily worse for the last 7 years and put up the worst record in the NBA.
So it's fair to ask if Kupchak was just lucky instead of good. But it is wrong to cherry pick your facts to support your conclusion that he was lucky. |
I think it was D-Fish or Phil who brought this quote up: Luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Mitch might have been lucky because Chris Wallace was so desperate to get rid of Pau Gasol for expiring contracts, but Mitch was also talented enough to get the deal done
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lakersflambe
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:23 am Post subject: |
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| Sky wrote: |
You can claim it's not hard to get a defense first 3 but that trade was a ski mask job and represented a sea change in Kupchak's approach. He dealt offense-first duplication for defense-first athleticism. First time Mitch ever did that. |
to be fair, sky, mitch did try to get banks in the payton debacle. |
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matrixskillz
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:47 am Post subject: |
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no, because no other team has kobe. 
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davidse
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:00 am Post subject: |
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disagree about a couple of things -
bynum -
will hopefully be a huge huge asset to the team for many years to come and obviously getting a big man of that quality at 10# is extremely difficult - but this is about duplicating this championship team.
and as far as his contributions to THIS championship run ?
a solid mle center signing would have done a very similar job.
so does this deserve do be in the "very difficult" category ?
depends on how you look at it...
ariza -
the ariza trade was supposed to be almost impossible to pull off because not only did we get the better player, but we also got the better financial end of the deal.
some of that is pure luck as orlando had no pt for ariza and had a better chance to use mo and cook, but at least in theory - pulling off a trade where you get the better player and the cheaper contract is extremely hard to do.
question is - is that ^ how you look at it (which puts it in the very hard category), or do you simply view it as getting an athletic defensive minded 3 - in which case it's really not hard to do in this league, and the one who got the justified credit here (mitch) - gets the blame for not doing that for many years... |
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targetman
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:18 am Post subject: |
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It would be interesting if someone did the "What if" game for the Celtics to show Simmons that the argument is a double sided sword.
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angrypuppy
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:45 am Post subject: Re: Could another team follow the same steps as the Lakers did? (LONG) |
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[quote="Dennis_D"]In a piece that got panned on this board for multiple reasons, Bill Simmons wrote:
| Quote: | The 2009 Lakers were built the same way someone goes on a three-hour craps run. In other words, don't even think about duplicating it. Seven solid "What if that coin flip had turned up tails instead of heads?" moments shaped the team. Namely, what if Jackson hadn't developed a relationship with Jeanie Buss? (No way he comes back to deal with Kobe again otherwise.) What if Anthony Carter's agent hadn't forgotten to send in his contract in time during the summer of 2003, creating enough cap space for Miami to sign Odom as a free agent, then giving Miami enough pieces to trade for Shaq a year later? What if the Lakers had traded Odom like they almost did about 35,000 times? What if Kobe hadn't blocked the Chicago trade -- and he did -- right before the 2007-08 season because the Bulls were giving up too much? What if Chris Wallace hadn't given them Gasol for 30 cents on the dollar? What if Otis Smith hadn't done the same in giving away Ariza? And what if Fisher's daughter hadn't fallen ill, forcing an unprecedented situation in which Utah released him from his deal so he could play for the Lakers?
(That's seven "what ifs." Seven. Amazing. The Chicago part remains the most incredible. You forget how close that was; I don't think I saw it explored once during the Finals.) |
Any significant event (such as auto accidents or buying a lottery ticket) is preceded by a chain of minor events that are time sequenced.
It sounds to me like Simmons had too much scotch late night, and went on a crying jag. |
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Andre2K
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 6:05 am Post subject: |
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Bill simmons or whatever his name is, is just bitter thats all
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Dennis_D
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 6:07 am Post subject: |
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I am going to combine a bunch of replies. Thanks to all of those who said nice things about the post.
| Megatron24 wrote: | | Portland could do it |
Portland already has almost all the pieces. The big question for them is can Oden stay healthy and achieve his potential. They just need to upgrade a couple of positions, but they have lots of time to do so.
| kenkoy wrote: | | Excellent post...but didn't they spend the MLE on Vlade Divac's return? |
By full MLE I mean the max amount for the max number of years (which is what they gave Radmanovic). Divac had a two year contract and the Lakers had the option to buy out the second year for 40% of its value.
| cbear wrote: | | But I don't think any of that would have mattered if Memphis hadn't gone looney and handed us Pau on a plate! I don't know if you can ever count on a team doing something like that (if you're thinking of copying the Laker blueprint). |
As I said in my post, All-Stars get traded regularly. Now, the Lakers were lucky that the All-Star they had a shot at was such a great fit for them, but the combination of a big expiring contract, a promising rookie in Critterton and Marc Gasol tearing up Europe would have made them the first call by any team that had decided it was time to move their All-Star.
Also, the Lakers were near the top of the league with Bynum before they got Gasol, so that gives a team wanting to copy their success an (extremely difficult) alternative blueprint.
| davidse wrote: | disagree about a couple of things -
bynum -
will hopefully be a huge huge asset to the team for many years to come and obviously getting a big man of that quality at 10# is extremely difficult - but this is about duplicating this championship team.
and as far as his contributions to THIS championship run ?
a solid mle center signing would have done a very similar job.
so does this deserve do be in the "very difficult" category ?
depends on how you look at it... |
Actually, I agree with all of this. One of things that make getting to the Finals consistently so difficult is that it is rare to go season after season without a major injury to a key player. Bynum didn't contribute much to this championship, but the Lakers had enough quality pieces that losing one to injury for most of the season didn't kill their championship hopes like Garnett's injury did to Boston.
| davidse wrote: | ariza -
the ariza trade was supposed to be almost impossible to pull off because not only did we get the better player, but we also got the better financial end of the deal.
some of that is pure luck as orlando had no pt for ariza and had a better chance to use mo and cook, but at least in theory - pulling off a trade where you get the better player and the cheaper contract is extremely hard to do.
question is - is that ^ how you look at it (which puts it in the very hard category), or do you simply view it as getting an athletic defensive minded 3 - in which case it's really not hard to do in this league, and the one who got the justified credit here (mitch) - gets the blame for not doing that for many years... |
It was a "pass the trash" deal where two teams swapped not-highly-paid bench players that had fallen out of favor with their coaches. Ariza hadn't had much success with two teams, so it's not like he was a hot prospect. So I think the GM's involved considered the difference in pay and talent minor compared to the opportunity to get some role players that better fit their system. Therefore, I still think it would be not hard to pull off a similar deal. |
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