Quit spouting off the same drivel over and over when its wrong:rolleyes:
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Woj just echoed what Marks said and thinks it will be hard to outright sign Cousins now.
Seems like it really comes down to who blinks and gets the slightly better deal, Cousins or Pels.
Awesome news for us, pretty much takes them out of the Cousins sweepstakes, unless they want to give up Ingram and Kuzma for him
What about Jules Randell? Can the Lakers resign him?
Yes now the Lakers basically have to trade Deng (which no team will help them do for cheap) and not take salary back. This would open up roughly 20m but still low for Cousins. Alternatively they could renounce Randle but then they lose him for nothing and it only gives them 16m ish to play with.
It's all sign and trades from here on out to get Cousins. My bet is they are focused on trading for Leonard now and have given up on Cousins. Either player now requires a trade to get a deal Done.
Per Marks on ESPN. Yeah, basically with KCP money gets really tight, which assumes they release several players. They could renounce Randle and free up some space(but I don't see them doing that because he is definitely the sort of asset the Spurs would be interested in) and they can stretch Luol Deng and free up a few more million.
TLDR is that my interpretation is that any deal for Cousins would require a sign and trade because there isn't a scenario where they can free up a whole lot of cap space as is unless they start shedding assets they probably need in a Spurs trade, like multiple first rounders.
L.A. blew their wad *No pun intended* with LeBron. No one is gonna take Deng without giving back a bad deal. Unless they get lucky and renounce Randle's rights, and stretch Deng over 5 years, they'll still be a little short of what we can offer. I think we're good now
Hearing Brook Lopez is a good bet to return to the Lakers. LA probably out of the running for DeMarcus Cousins after using a good amount of cap space to retain Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) July 2, 2018
Crazy as it is this might be one of those rare moments in the Demps era where we get the better end of signing a major player. Definitely seems like it won't be an Eric Gordon situation.
Unless we bid against ourselves, which by all accounts we aren't doing, I'm not even sure Cousins could leverage a 20 million a year contract from a quality team without us extending some goodwill.
LA is instantly Houston/GS level. You guys are sleeping in you think it will take a few years for them to get there. The West just got insane. Worse....while I think if we had Boogie we match-up nicely against Houston and GS, LeBron will straight up annihilate us.
This is great if you hate GS. Bad for Pelfans.
People are overlooking 1 thing. About boogie to the lakers... Lebron’s contract allows for him to be sign and traded from Cleveland to the lakers. It would be difficult for them to match salaries, but it could happen. A sign and trade would allow for the Lakers to go over the cap to aquire Lebron. It’s all about the order that they carry out transactions; something like this:
1) sign Caldwell-Pope
2) sign Boogie w/ whatever cap space remains
3) sign and trade for Lebron pushing them over the cap
I wouldn't go THAT far. But no. The west is annoying better and that weight, that feel pressing down on us, is the glass ceiling. As if we have already gotten as good as this era of New Orleans basketball will ever get.
I've been outside talking to a friend. Lebron going to the Lakers... Did I miss anything else in the past 2 hours?
Yeah unless they get Kawhi, or unless Brandon Ingram/Lonzo Ball/Kuzma all take some sort of monumental leaps, I think the Warriors are safe barring injury.
Rockets I'm a bit more skeptical of because of Paul's health and losing their best wing defender in Ariza.
Lopez
Randell
Lebron
KCP
Ingram
Kuzma
Ball
Heart
Those young players did very well last year, add LBJ to that mix and heck yeah I would say that they are a top tier team in the West. They have the best player in the NBA.
Except Lebron already agreed to terms on a contract without a sign and trade.
Also what incentive does Cleveland have to help the Lakers out? The whole point is the Lakers are keeping assets to make a move for Leonard. They aren't trying to give up assets elsewhere.
Screamin A is also reporting the Spurs/Lakers have been on the phone twice today and plan for a third call tonight.
Spurs want the house: multiple draft picks, and multiple young players. Lakers say Kuzma is off limits, don't want to give up three draft picks(didn't mention Ingram specifically though). The Lakers mindset is that Kawhi wants to be in LA so they are willing to wait til next offseason if the Spurs remain unreasonable from their perspective.
Well at least Lebron won’t make his finals record worse now.
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Though on the flip side, Stephen is also saying many executives and insiders think Kawhi may sit out the season if he isn't dealt.
So with the 4 year Lebron deal and the Spurs only having one year of Kawhi before he can walk for nothing, they definitely have less leverage than they did an couple hours ago.
Yeah something like that sounds about right. The key to me would be to make the 2nd year either guaranteed or a team option.
No way in **** I give Cousins a 2nd year player option that he can just opt out of after finishing rehab with us then have the ability to just walk to the Lakers next year. I'd rather just guarantee the 2nd year and then do a 3rd year team option.
The only way this would work is in a 3 team trade. I tried to trade machine it but they already added Lebron to the Lakers. Here is my idea:
LA sends:
- Lonzo Ball to Cleveland
- Julius Randle to Cleveland (via sign & trade)
- Deng to Cleveland
- Ingram to San Antonio
- Hart to San Antonio
- colection of picks to San Antonio
LA gets Back:
- Lebron via sign and trade
- Kawhi
- Also, this allows them to sign boogie and Caldwell-Pope before the trade.
That leaves the following LA team:
Lebron
Kawhi
Boogie
Caldwell-Pope
Kuzma
+ whoever wants to play for the minimum
I think this would be like 2-3 mill short on San Antonio to make it work, but it is close enough to start with. Although extremely far fetched