The terribly mediocre Lakers

HomeRunBaker

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Outside of the time OKC traded one of its star players to Houston for cheap prospects.
The year after trading Harden the Thunder still had the 7th highest team salary in the league.....they weren't the Oakland A's. They made a choice.......OKC choose to pay a cripple Kendrick Perkins 4/$36m rather than Harden 4/$56m. The issue here wasn't money as it was a horrific personnel decision along with an interesting, to say the least, medical decision as Perkins couldn't run up and down the court without limping at the time of the trade while being immediately shut down after signing his extension upon being acquired by OKC.
 
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HomeRunBaker

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The NBA seems to be the most predictable of the four leagues. Teams at the fringe of contention seem to have a better chance of winning it all in the other leagues than in the NBA. Do you think that the owners of many or most NBA teams feel as though the deck is stacked heavily against them? Do you think they would like to see the league put serious impediments in the way of L.A. and a few other franchises casually taking their best talent away from them?
I'll double down on my position of disagreeing with you. When was the last time LA stole anyone's talent.....Karl Malone's corpse? Dwight Howard? Look at the other large markets......the Knicks haven't made a significant deal since destroying Carmelo's career 6 years ago, the Nets "stole" Gerald Wallace prior to sticking it to Ainge by stealing KG and Pierce's golden years from us, and the Bulls sneaking into South Beach to kidnap Dwayne Wade's arthritic knees. If there are small market teams complaining it is the ones who have made terrible personnel decisions through the years.......other small market teams have been very successful over the past decade(s) like Memphis, OKC, Cleveland, San Antonio, Indiana, and Utah.

I understand what you are saying by the league being predictable year over year but that is just how basketball is.....it is the one singular sport where top end talent is the most valuable piece of a roster but this has nothing to do with small markets vs large markets. One of Silver's priorities has been to allow teams to RETAIN this talent for branding purposes rather than distribute them year after year. With todays technological advances the market size carries less weight than ever with so much of a teams revenue stream coming from league shared revenues such as the massive tv contracts which figure to only increase moving forward with Amazon and Alphabet (Google) likely raising the bar in these payments.
 

kenneycb

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They offered Harden 4/$56M, $4M less than the max because they explicitly did not want to pay the luxury tax. I don't know how that issue is not money.
 

HomeRunBaker

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They offered Harden 4/$56M, $4M less than the max because they explicitly did not want to pay the luxury tax. I don't know how that issue is not money.
This was when all but 6 NBA teams structured their roster to avoid the luxury tax. The new CBA with the accelerated tax burdens scared the living daylights out of nearly all the teams in regards to paying the tax. Again, the Thunder were near the TOP of the league in team salary. They were no different than most other teams in looking to avoid the tax.

If they truly wanted to be penny pinchers they would have simply allowed Jeff Green to walk for nothing rather than trading him for Perkins then inexplicably inking him to a 4/$36m deal. This coming year OKC is set to have $122m in player salary (7th highest overall), just $11m from the Cavaliers (another small market) at the top, and literally less than half a million from having the 4th highest team salary in the league. It didn't stop them from signing a role player like Steven Adams 4/$100m.
 
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ishmael

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Nets @ Lakers Friday November 3rd
Lakers @ Nets Friday February 2nd

Hoping for Lakers to be no better than 2-6 going into that first matchup...
 

InstaFace

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Vegas odds are out:
The Los Angeles Lakers' win total opened at 33.5, their highest since the 2013-14 campaign. The Lakers are +550 underdogs to make the playoffs in the rugged Western Conference, though. But there are believers.

Out of the first 101 bets on the Lakers' playoff odds at the Westgate, Sherman said 100 were on "Yes."
 

In my lifetime

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Also interesting in that not only are the LAL tied for the 9th least predicted wins, while the Nets are tied for the 3rd least predicted wins. I think this helps with understanding why Danny felt the LAL pick is more valuable or at least the safer of the 2 to keep.

There is close to a 50% chance that the Net pick falls out of the top 6, while the Laker pick is protected on the downside at 6. It is probably the Celtic analysis that the Laker pick is unlikely to be the pick that they get, but the downside protection is critical. The Celtics figure the Sacramento pick is likely to be as good as the Net pick bolstered by the upside of an unlikely LAL pick instead.

In other words, if it is true that Danny had his choice of which asset to trade that it makes sense that the analysis would yield the Fultz trade pick as more valuable than the Net pick at this time.
 

BigMike

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Also interesting in that not only are the LAL tied for the 9th least predicted wins, while the Nets are tied for the 3rd least predicted wins. I think this helps with understanding why Danny felt the LAL pick is more valuable or at least the safer of the 2 to keep.

There is close to a 50% chance that the Net pick falls out of the top 6, while the Laker pick is protected on the downside at 6. It is probably the Celtic analysis that the Laker pick is unlikely to be the pick that they get, but the downside protection is critical. The Celtics figure the Sacramento pick is likely to be as good as the Net pick bolstered by the upside of an unlikely LAL pick instead.

In other words, if it is true that Danny had his choice of which asset to trade that it makes sense that the analysis would yield the Fultz trade pick as more valuable than the Net pick at this time.
It may be likely the Sacramento pick will be higher than the Laker pick, but at the same time early indications are the 2019 draft is expected to be MUCH weaker than the 2018 draft.

I'm also not buying there is a 50% chance the Nets pick falls out of the top 6. I think it is possible, but a lot of things have to go very right for Brooklyn, and obviously go wrong for a few other teams. Personally I'd put it closer to 10-20% chance it drops out of top 6
 

In my lifetime

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You are correct, and my analysis was too much back of the matchbook.

Looking at it closer:

The 2017 draft is supposed to be very strong picks 1-5, then drop (of course who really knows at this point, but the decision was made this month and the information at this point is the only available to be used. So let's just suppose that the top 5 in 2018 is equivalent to the top 3 in 2019.

Right now if Nets finish with the #4 worst record (tied for 3rd worst in Vegas odds, but finishing better is probably much more likely than the bottom 2).
Odds of pick at #4 would be (thanks Tankathon)
1--11.9
2--12.6
3--13.3
4-- 9.9
5-- 35.1
6-- 16.0
7-- 1.2

So I think your call of 10-20% is very good. So this is a 17% chance of being a B pick (after #5 in 2018 draft)

The Lakers at their current predicted spot, the pick has a 4.5% chance of being #2 or 3

and a ~94% of turning into the Sacramento pick in 2019.

Sacramento looks unlikely to better in 2019 than 2018 where they are predicted with the 5th worst record. So let's say they have the 4th worst record in 2019 (just like the Nets had it in 2018)
So with a supposedly weaker draft. getting a B player 4+ figures to be a 53% chance.

So in this analysis
the Net Pick would have an 80% of resulting in an A player
the LAL/SK pick about an 42% chance of resulting in an A player

So if DA had a choice with this scenario you would think he would choose the LAL/SK pcik.

1st we don't really know that he had this choice and 2nd if he did, I am sure the Celtics analyzed, projected the sh*t out of the possibilities and went with the odds. A very little change skews the odds tremendously. For example if this year's draft has A players 1-4 instead of 1-5, then all of a sudden the Net pick is projected as a 53% chance to get a B player. With that 1 player change, the deal swings so that the LAL/SK pick is close to equivalent.

My point is that with the reports that Ainge had his choice of what pick to include, I was surprised that he would choose the Net pick to trade. But I can see the possibility with analyzing all the factors they have at their disposal, that maybe their conclusion was that the LAL/SK pick is better. Then again (and perhaps far more likely), maybe Ainge never had a choice and it was the Net pick or no deal.
 

nighthob

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If I didn't have a gambling problem, I'd be hammering the under on that Laker win total. I know that Ballmania is sweeping America, but rookie point guards just generally don't have that sort of impact.

Factor in that LA will be attempting to lose two of their players for future free agency purposes and that they're playing in an absolutely brutal conference (seriously, they'll be playing around 50 games against playoff teams or teams looking to make the playoffs), and I'll be shocked if they win 25.

Brooklyn's schedule is the inverse of LA's, they'll only be playing 30-32 games against playoff/playoff hopeful teams. Of course the injury history of their key players puts a huge variance on the results. If their key guys (Lin, LeVert, Carroll, Mozgov) are healthy, they could legitimately win 32-36 games. But their injury histories suggest that they all miss time and that 26-28 wins is more likely.
 

BigMike

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If I didn't have a gambling problem, I'd be hammering the under on that Laker win total. I know that Ballmania is sweeping America, but rookie point guards just generally don't have that sort of impact.

Factor in that LA will be attempting to lose two of their players for future free agency purposes and that they're playing in an absolutely brutal conference (seriously, they'll be playing around 50 games against playoff teams or teams looking to make the playoffs), and I'll be shocked if they win 25.

Brooklyn's schedule is the inverse of LA's, they'll only be playing 30-32 games against playoff/playoff hopeful teams. Of course the injury history of their key players puts a huge variance on the results. If their key guys (Lin, LeVert, Carroll, Mozgov) are healthy, they could legitimately win 32-36 games. But their injury histories suggest that they all miss time and that 26-28 wins is more likely.
How can the Nets play only 32 games against playoff hopeful teams. You have probably 10-11 East teams who are Playoff Hopeful, plus I guess another 10 or so from the west.

Now if you are talking about good teams, etc. Then yes the numbers may be more stark in differenc
 

Smokey Joe

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I was listening to The Dunc'd on podcast about the Kings the other day and was shocked about how bad they are going to be. 9/15 players on their roster are rookies or first year players, one of which is Bu__y Hiel_ (no D). Their veterans are Captain Backpack (Randolph), George Hill, Vince Carter, Garrett Temple and Kousta Koufos. I wish we had the 2018 Kings pick rather then the possibility of the 2019 pick. But I bet they are not going to be much better then.
 

nighthob

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How can the Nets play only 32 games against playoff hopeful teams. You have probably 10-11 East teams who are Playoff Hopeful, plus I guess another 10 or so from the west.

Now if you are talking about good teams, etc. Then yes the numbers may be more stark in differenc
The East has four good teams, Toronto, and three teams that are going to make the playoffs because someone has to. I should probably have expressed this in terms of "playing teams that are likely to finish above .500" though.
 

lovegtm

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If I didn't have a gambling problem, I'd be hammering the under on that Laker win total. I know that Ballmania is sweeping America, but rookie point guards just generally don't have that sort of impact.
I got a few grand in with my Laker fan friends on exactly that bet, and they were ITCHING for the action. Also gave them 1-5 odds against LAL making the playoffs.

People in LA are completely delusional about Ball's likely impact. The UCLA factor has them in overdrive.
 

djbayko

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Also interesting in that not only are the LAL tied for the 9th least predicted wins, while the Nets are tied for the 3rd least predicted wins. I think this helps with understanding why Danny felt the LAL pick is more valuable or at least the safer of the 2 to keep.

There is close to a 50% chance that the Net pick falls out of the top 6, while the Laker pick is protected on the downside at 6. It is probably the Celtic analysis that the Laker pick is unlikely to be the pick that they get, but the downside protection is critical. The Celtics figure the Sacramento pick is likely to be as good as the Net pick bolstered by the upside of an unlikely LAL pick instead.

In other words, if it is true that Danny had his choice of which asset to trade that it makes sense that the analysis would yield the Fultz trade pick as more valuable than the Net pick at this time.
I hope Danny isn't using Vegas odds to guide his decision making. Odds roughly reflect true probability but are also heavily influenced by public perception. The public is full of emotional people and idiots, and that is magnified when you're talking about a team that has a very large following because there will be a larger percentage of laypeople betting on the team. Lakers fans have an irrational obsession with Ball and overestimate the value he is going to bring to the team, at least in his first year.
 

nighthob

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The Vegas line has the Lakers five games better than the Nets, so he clearly wasn't using those odds in setting the relative valuations.
 

Cesar Crespo

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If they want to make the league less predictable, they would just remove the max contract. There's 1000 reasons why that won't happen but I guess with a lot of mid level players receiving less money than expected, it's closer to happening now than last year. The league isn't predictable because the top markets steal talent. It's because LeBron James is getting paid half what he deserves.
 

cheech13

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I'd expect that out of Magic, but you'd think an experienced agent like Pelinka would know better.
 

HomeRunBaker

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I'd expect that out of Magic, but you'd think an experienced agent like Pelinka would know better.
I'm assuming this is all standard business practice and has been for quite some time. The only reason it was brought to light was due to the Pacers feeling some butthurt for losing George without anything they can do about it. This is why the league office collectively laughed at the Pacers with a "Seriously?" and slapped a token fine on the Lakers to close the case.
 

LondonSox

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Wtf is even the point?

By the way the Lakers fans are in full on loco mode
Had a guy on twitter say that soon
Zonzo > curry
Ingram > Durant
Randle> green
And JC> klay

So.... Yeah. That happened
 

Kliq

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Wtf is even the point?

By the way the Lakers fans are in full on loco mode
Had a guy on twitter say that soon
Zonzo > curry
Ingram > Durant
Randle> green
And JC> klay

So.... Yeah. That happened
Someone on Twitter posted something stupid? Whaaaa???
 

HomeRunBaker

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Gotta love the game within the game.......

Multiple league sources suggested to ESPN that a major motivating factor in the Lakers’ signing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to a one-year, $18 million deal this offseason was because Caldwell-Pope is repped by Rich Paul, the same agent as James. Now the Lakers can spend a year communicating with Paul, showing him how they run their organization, sharing meals, etc., and it will all be protected under the Caldwell-Pope prism, even if it could prove influential as to what James ultimately decides to do. As for teams being even more covert in their preemptive pursuit of James, a league source familiar with James’ past free agencies said more teams would view it as a “waste of time” because James is known for wanting to have the control rather than be wooed.
 

mauf

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The Vegas line has the Lakers five games better than the Nets, so he clearly wasn't using those odds in setting the relative valuations.
That's not necessarily true. You can buy the conventional wisdom and still like what seems to be a lower-variance LAL/SAC pick over the BKN pick -- perhaps the latter is more likely to land in the top 3, but it's also more likely to land at #9.

But I agree that Danny probably likes the "under" on the Lakers' win total.
 

ishmael

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That's not necessarily true. You can buy the conventional wisdom and still like what seems to be a lower-variance LAL/SAC pick over the BKN pick -- perhaps the latter is more likely to land in the top 3, but it's also more likely to land at #9.

But I agree that Danny probably likes the "under" on the Lakers' win total.
I'm just having a really hard time valuing the LAL/SAC/PHL pick higher than the BKLYN pick. If the Lakers finish anything better than 4th worst record, there is a good chance the pick rolls over to 2019.

And even if you project the Nets to finish 4th to 7th worst, you have a reasonable number of ping pong balls to end up in the top 3 (including 1st overall, which DA has already shown has excess value to the Celtics compared to other teams):
 

lovegtm

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And even if you project the Nets to finish 4th to 7th worst, you have a reasonable number of ping pong balls to end up in the top 3 (including 1st overall, which DA has already shown has excess value to the Celtics compared to other teams):
Clearly the Celtics have projected that "reasonable number of ping pong balls" to be less valuable than the lower variance pick, since by all accounts they had a choice of which pick to send out. To arrive at that projection you have to think the following, probably weighted more towards 3 and 4:

1. The Lakers will be somewhat worse than projected
2. The Nets will be somewhat better
3. The Kings will be very bad
4. 2019 will be reasonably close in quality to 2018, particularly from pick 3 or 4 on down.

This is one of those decisions that is pretty close, and you're basically going with the best projection you can come up with, and flipping a coin.
 

LondonSox

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That's not necessarily true. You can buy the conventional wisdom and still like what seems to be a lower-variance LAL/SAC pick over the BKN pick -- perhaps the latter is more likely to land in the top 3, but it's also more likely to land at #9.

But I agree that Danny probably likes the "under" on the Lakers' win total.
I think the Lakers pick (other than the top 1) is better, next year at this early stage appears to have 5/6 top players (it could be more or less in the end, I suspect more but like this year no slam dunk 1)

You don't want a Lakers pick at say 8, you'd rather have a shot at the kings (though again the top 1 protection is a bugger)

I think everyone seems to ignore the downside risk. The Lakers doesn't come (if it's at 1 just terrible) and the kings are awful again, there is a very meaningful risk they could get the one as well.
If the Lakers pick is late, clearly the kings pick is more value. But the protection where you can end up with a mid round 1st only does matter Vs the nets you just get it regardless.

Super complicated calculation on value because have to project kings two years out (and them relative to others), and sixers (if they suck still downside changes) and the Lakers.
You are modeling a hugely uncertain outcome in 2019.

The nets has an ability to be first overall and almost zero chance to be non lottery.
The other pick is more likely to be higher but has no 1 overall upside AND has a meaningful risk of being a blah pick.

Depending on your projections I could argue it either way. Which imo suggests it's close
 

HomeRunBaker

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Clearly the Celtics have projected that "reasonable number of ping pong balls" to be less valuable than the lower variance pick, since by all accounts they had a choice of which pick to send out. To arrive at that projection you have to think the following, probably weighted more towards 3 and 4:

1. The Lakers will be somewhat worse than projected
2. The Nets will be somewhat better
3. The Kings will be very bad
4. 2019 will be reasonably close in quality to 2018, particularly from pick 3 or 4 on down.

This is one of those decisions that is pretty close, and you're basically going with the best projection you can come up with, and flipping a coin.
We have to consider that maybe Ainge didn't have a preference or if he did it may have been a marginal edge to which pick he moved. We also have to consider that based on my above sentence, which I tend to feel could be at least a fairly accurate assessment of the picks from his end, that Cleveland DID have a preference in assurances that they land a 2018 lottery pick. He isn't focused so much on the picks as he is focused on the value that his future trading partner has on these picks.

I also feel that Ainge recognized this prior to the draft which was why he was sure include a "replacement asset" in the form of another lottery pick that for the sake of future trades could be close to equal value as the Brooklyn pick which teams would prefer right now.
 

lovegtm

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I think everyone seems to ignore the downside risk. The Lakers doesn't come (if it's at 1 just terrible) and the kings are awful again, there is a very meaningful risk they could get the one as well.
If the Lakers pick is late, clearly the kings pick is more value. But the protection where you can end up with a mid round 1st only does matter Vs the nets you just get it regardless.
There's definitely downside risk. That's sports--
We have to consider that maybe Ainge didn't have a preference or if he did it may have been a marginal edge to which pick he moved. We also have to consider that based on my above sentence, which I tend to feel could be at least a fairly accurate assessment of the picks from his end, that Cleveland DID have a preference in assurances that they land a 2018 lottery pick. He isn't focused so much on the picks as he is focused on the value that his future trading partner has on these picks.

I also feel that Ainge recognized this prior to the draft which was why he was sure include a "replacement asset" in the form of another lottery pick that for the sake of future trades could be close to equal value as the Brooklyn pick which teams would prefer right now.
Yeah, I 100% agree with this. I think I mentioned this in the other thread when I talked about Danny betting not on individual players, but on the price of a disgruntled/expiring star remaining about a top 5 pick+parts, or two top 5 picks+parts. He clearly thinks that you just want as many of those as possible, and I think events are proving him right.

This probably should be in another thread, but where do the Celtics next replenish their high lotto picks from? The Memphis pick is the only current candidate, although I guess they could pull a Fultz again if the LAL/SAC pick hits top 3 or so.
 

JakeRae

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There's definitely downside risk. That's sports--

Yeah, I 100% agree with this. I think I mentioned this in the other thread when I talked about Danny betting not on individual players, but on the price of a disgruntled/expiring star remaining about a top 5 pick+parts, or two top 5 picks+parts. He clearly thinks that you just want as many of those as possible, and I think events are proving him right.

This probably should be in another thread, but where do the Celtics next replenish their high lotto picks from? The Memphis pick is the only current candidate, although I guess they could pull a Fultz again if the LAL/SAC pick hits top 3 or so.
They probably don't. The run of high lottery picks without being a bad team was never going to last forever. They might get really lucky and have one more shot with the Memphis pick, but the future is about turning the current roster into a contender and contending. Eventually, this team will start to get old and they'll have to start thinking of ways to extract value from a declining roster, but hopefully that is far in the future.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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Devin Booker is one of the most overrated players out there. Has like one good game every five and the rest of the time it’s just terrible hero ball, like late Kobe hero ball.