If thats reasonable, from ADs perspective it might not make much sense for him to join a LBJ thats potentially breaking down (or on the verge) and is no longer the player he was, yet one that is still sucking up a 41 Million dollar max Slot.
From LBJs perspective he may realize that this is his last contract (expires After 21-22 when he is 36). So while he wont need the money, it also may not behoove his future business dealings if it appears that Klutch steered one of their prime clients to an LA team so an aging Lebron has someone to lean on. Maybe they should be called Crutch Sports Group. Instead it may behoove their business model for the Celts (or another historical team, so yeah lakers or Knicks included) to sign him to a mega contract and remain a relevant championship contender for the next 3 or so years (Not sure the Lakers or Knicks would be in that position).
So will Lebron hold up another 2-3 years? By a month into the next season he will have played more minutes (Playoff and Regular Season) then anyone not named Kareem or Karl. And he is accumulating mins about 1.16 times as fast as Kareem per season.
I think it could be seen one way if your uniting with a player for 2-4+ years of an extended run. You might allow your Agency to "pull some strings" and "cut some corners". Its another if you pull those strings for maybe a year or 2 of effective cooperation.
At 36 and showing wear, You might be better off letting your agency do as the market has always done, Get the most money in the best scenario (which includes competitive team and "enjoyable" environment). You might also not want to piss off another (along with the Pels) Franchise by "tampering". At least not for a guy who may well be breaking down by that point and only have @1 all star year left.
Now AD may actually want LA (or South beach or Phoenix or wherever..) over all else. But I am beginning to think that by kicking the can a year further down the road the LBJ factor would be that much more minimized. And if LBJ is no longer the driving reason to go to LA then do you go considering all else? Especially when LBJs 40+ million is essentially the same thing Kobe did in that it could potentially "gut the franchise" by paying a broken down star Max Money. In essence hamstringing the team from being able to put any talent around a "second fiddle" like AD after LBJs breakdown/retirement.
A (hopefully) deep playoff run, A Raucous Garden, Stable coach, GM and owner, and you begin to think that Boston is a pretty decent place to commit long term.
I’m not aiming these remarks at you personally, because this is just 7000th post expressing some variant of “Boston is so awesome that Davis will fire his agent and stay”. Except that we already saw, post Davis fiasco last winter, that Boston
isn’t so awesome when Klutch is doing everything in its power to suck the life out of the clubhouse so that the star is eager to exit. Boston would need to convince Davis to stay after
an entire year of the misery the franchise went through from January through May.
Expecting anything less than 2-4 salacious stories of discord a week is wishcasting. No matter how stable management looks, the clubhouse won’t be. Klutch will make sure of that.
HRB called this last summer, and I was a skeptic
until we saw the lengths Klutch was willing to go to to poison things in Boston and make it even less attractive publicly and to warn Boston what they were facing if they went ahead anyway. From the perspective of Boston or any team other than the Lakers Klutch has a
massive conflict of interest. Only Davis doesn’t see it that way, which is likely why he hired them to be his agents, because they were the team to get him to the Lakers.
I guess it depends on how much you rate the #4 in this draft; I'm not a draftnik but the dearth of blue chip prospects seems to indicate that the improvement while real is relatively marginal. Ingram was the lead asset in the deadline deal and the blood clots open up significant uncertainty.
The other reason why I see a "Billy King" deal is that the Lakers FO has no leadership and a strong incentive to push their chips in now. If you're the Pels, don't you go hard for 2022-2024-2026 #1s or some combination of those + pick swaps? Could be huge for them if they do.
I agree with this, if you’re Griffin you make a bet on the post-LeBron years and see what LA can cobble together for current assets. If the Lakers can talk Chicago or Phoenix into some variant of Ball for their firsts, a deal is probably doable. Griffin can probably even get picks for Ingram once he proves to be healthy. But coming out of this draft with a potentially elite 3&D guy like Hunter and then the ability to roll the dice on Reddish or Porter, or draft a defensive backstop like Hayes, while betting on the Lakers sucking post-LeBron is probably not a bad return.
Yup, this is probably true but I would still roll the dice on one of year of AD. You could win a title next year & then if he walks? Who cares Celts are champs. That is the one & only goal. Tatum will never be as good as AD & is not a generational talent like AD that will lead Celts to a title unless he’s the second or third best player on a team. You go for this move every. Single. Time. Just ask the Raps. No Durant next year. Add AD to the Celts & they can do it. Yeah it’s fun to watch the young guys but I want to see new banners in the rafters not early exists. Obviously getting Davis guarantees nothing but the hardest thing to do in the NBA is to get a true superstar & to a win a title without a true superstar. Get Davis & you can accomplish both.
You could, you almost certainly don’t. Then he leaves and you’ve emptied the larder and now you’re the Miami Heat, a scrappy team of roleplayers trying to take the eighth playoff spot and getting bounced in the first round when you’re lucky enough to make it. At which point you have to ask
How long is the coach sticking around? because he’ll almost certainly have a pile of offers waiting for him when
he hits free agency.
AD isn’t a generational talent. He isn’t even the best player in the NBA. So either the word “generational talent” is a lot more inclusive than I thought, or he’s just a top 4-8 player in the NBA (maybe we can promote him a spot due to Durant’s injury). Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great player. And you
do need guys like that to win a title. But the odds of doing it year one are approximately 0%, and you’ll never get another chance. Time for Plan B.
Now that Kyrie has elected to become a FA, the C’s can officially trade for AD
Only in the same sense that they could do it right now. Kyrie exercised his ETO, which makes him a free agent as of July 1st. So trades can’t be completed until the new NBA season (though they can be agreed on now as is the case with the recent Crabbe trade).