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i would say its to tough to tell. its got more to do with what the rest of the west does than it does what the lakers do.
ill say the lakers are not much if any better than last year. kobe is a HUGE ???? boozer will do a bit of scoring but hes no defender. none of their other pickups/signings are roster filler.
They could get lucky with some lottery balls but any way you slice it they only have 2 of their next 4 picks.
They haven't been able to get any free agents to seriously consider them other than Dwight.
They've chewed through a number of coaches making what can only be described as abrupt and questionable choices along the way.
They let PJ go run the Knicks....and not the Lakers.....despite having their worst record in ever and having the Howard\Nash experiment blow up in their face the guys that did that deal are still there.
I'm just pointing out that there are warning signs that this team is not being run like the Jerry Buss Lakers of years past.
The fact that the coach wound up getting canned because of Nash\Howard and not the GM? How do you feel about that?
i would say its to tough to tell. its got more to do with what the rest of the west does than it does what the lakers do.
ill say the lakers are not much if any better than last year. kobe is a HUGE ???? boozer will do a bit of scoring but hes no defender. none of their other pickups/signings are roster filler.
No sane person is predicting they will do anything the next 2 years. The wildcard is what they'll be able to do after that.
The big hope for salvation is that Lebron will go there.....you can find a million threads predicting that both this year and when he left Cleveland.....and he didn't come to LA either time. Plus that many others will join in a la the Miami situation.
Is it possible? Yes, hence the over-under.
However, it's much much harder to do when you have almost nothing to trade and thus have to find free agents that don't require any trade to occur.
We'll see...but as a Bulls fan, I think there are some Lakers' fans that are a little spoiled by the Shaq-Kobe era and think it's easy to just bounce back....and that a 10 year drought can't possibly happen to them. Celtics thought that too....so did Knicks fans.....and so forth.
In light of some of their recent management decisions....that's why i put the over\under at 5 years. These are the guys that gave up 2013, 2015 and 2017 picks for Nash and Howard after all.
Like Rigas said, it has to do with the rest of the West as much as it does with the Lakers roster (for the sake of predicting whether they'll be a playoff team in the next 5 years).
Can we sit here and definitively say that the Thunder are going to be a contender in 3 years when we all know that they're one free agent move away from being mediocre?
The Spurs could be pretty mediocre in 3 years too (not a bottom dweller, but average).
Where will the Warriors be? If they lose Klay in free agency next summer, they're just average.
Who's going to be Memphis' stars in 3 years? Randolph's past his prime, Tony Allen will be as well. Gasol is the best thing they've got right now.
No disrespect to Byron Scott, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's gone in 2 or 3 years.
For some reason, this reminds me of Del Harris or Rudy Tomjanovich. When the team isn't settled, it's hard for the coach to be. The lakers in 5 years will probably look completely different.
Like Rigas said, it has to do with the rest of the West as much as it does with the Lakers roster (for the sake of predicting whether they'll be a playoff team in the next 5 years).
Can we sit here and definitively say that the Thunder are going to be a contender in 3 years when we all know that they're one free agent move away from being mediocre?
The Spurs could be pretty mediocre in 3 years too (not a bottom dweller, but average).
Where will the Warriors be? If they lose Klay in free agency next summer, they're just average.
Who's going to be Memphis' stars in 3 years? Randolph's past his prime, Tony Allen will be as well. Gasol is the best thing they've got right now.
all of that is true BUT the difference between all those teams and the lakers is all those teams have assets, picks, tradeable contracts, good cap room. the lakers really dont have any of that. thats what mathguy is saying.
lakers management since dr buss passed has really gone to hell in a hand basket. they mortgaged 3-5 years of flexibility in the twilight of their big stars career on a winner take all, title or bust type fire sale with getting nash and howard to play with kobe and pau. 5-6 years ago you put kobe/pua/howard/nash on a team together and the entire league is screwed. thats a better team on paper than the heat ever were. laker management was stuck in the jerry buss era in their heads and thought "we are the lakers we can pull off anything and win a title"
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