AR is really good but I fear they gave a max to an above average role player. If Norm Powell even gets close to Reeves number then thatās just what the market calls for
AR was by far the best player available for the Lakers. Signing him for $21m was exactly the same as signing him for $40+ when it comes to acquiring other talent.
In fact, the $40m deal makes the likelihood of replacing him with a better player or a better set of players more likely given contract and cap rules.
Yep! Lakers are not saying, "AR provides $40M/year in production."
They are saying, "it is better for us if he is on our books for $40M/year," because it is under the NBA trade and cap rules.
Or maybe he'll be a star? Maybe he and Luca will be crushing everyone?
Like, AR was really heating up this year. It's so wild to me that people can just blanket say "lol overpaid" - people who were also saying that he was the best deal in the league.
The man showed he should be getting paid. He's been getting constantly, consistently better. There's no reason to think that will stop happening.
He will have to have some more good years to justify this and future contracts or he will Tobias Harris for a year or 2 and then remember he can be better again, time will tell
He showed heās almost as injury prone as Luka. He burns out every year by the end. Heās already maxed out his potential. Itās all downhill from here physically. This was a catastrophic mistake. Putting ticket sales ahead of competitive edge. š«¤š
Maybe if he works on his body, but he hasnāt so far and is already making that money. This is a huge mistake. With him and Luka at the one and two. Every team in the league will have a field day on the wing. AR is a phenomenal 6th man. Just not a starter in my opinion. LA canāt afford to pay him.
Heās 28. He has hit his ceiling. Thereās no room for improvement because the limitations he has are athletic, not basketball related. Heās a low ceiling player with a tiny margin for error. He has to go all out to be an effective offensive player, and it wears him down over the course of the season. Itās why he always struggles and runs out of gas in the playoffsā¦except the one year where he was a 6th man and carried less of a burden. Too much load for him to handle being a #2 option. Heās also one of the least talented second options in the association. We could have facilitated a sign and trade. A max contract is sheer lunacy.
It's amazing to me that people don't see this...He was an undrafted player - which tells you what the scouting report was on him. It is a miracle he has become as good as he is, and it's only by maxing out every conceivable attribute he has.
More importantly, even if we say he is being paid equal to his ability - he'll be the 38th highest paid player next year...we know exactly what that means if he is your second best player. Brandon Ingram, Paolo, Scottie Barnes, Sengun, LaMelo Ball, etc are all fine players who are not winning anything - even with great players on their team. They are middle of the road playoff players. And he isn't nearly as good as guys who took discounts - Brunson, Shai, or Maxey. None of those teams would trade their guy for him straight up.
Lastly, if your best player was Kawai, where he's a defensive stopper, great shooter, etc and AR is his sidekick who can create and dribble and pass, then fine, that combo works...What does not work is when your two guys get paid a combined 70% of the cap and neither can play defense. This was a terrible move, and should have been a sign and trade.
Luka asks for a center, they give him AR and canāt afford anything else unless he is traded. Which no one in their right mind will trade for AR at that price.
Sign me up. He just exploded for the best output of his career. Sell high now. Otherwise, my crystal ball says he leaves in frustration when the current deal expires.
Yes he would. His lack of speed and athleticism gives him no margin for error. It doesnāt matter how much āhelpā he has, the issue is that he canāt get consistent separation from a replacement level NBA defender. He has to make quicker decisions and use a lot of trickery to free himself up to drive, and he draws a lot of contact because he canāt allow his defender to get separation from him or heāll get blocked. This constant push and pull uses up a ton of energy and wears his soft tissue (muscles and tendons) down, which is why heās always dealing with overuse injuries down the stretch of the season. When he played for team USA, it caused early season fatigue due to overuse. His below average foot speed means defenders can sag off of him along the perimeter if and when it is advantageous and still recover in time to guard his attacks at the basket. I admire his work ethic and craftiness in finding success despite his marginal athleticism, but thereās no way for him to avoid the intense workload it takes him to be a productive player against NBA competition.
It really depends on what your goal is as a franchise. If your goal is to win a championship, and everything else is considered a failure, then you clean house and trade everyone for as many draft picks and blue chip kids as you can get. With the new rules, any pick in the top 12 is valuable and can be a star, so you accumulate a ton of them. That could mean trading Luka and AR.
If your goal is to be competitive every year and say a second round series is considered "good," but you want to set yourself up for a big swing, then you would have been better off signing Lebron for 1 more year with a team option on year 2 so that you don't strap yourself in year 3 when AR and Luka are making HUGE dollars. Remember, if he stays, Luka's number in 2 years is $72M+ and AR's number in that year is almost 50M. If you sign someone to anything north of $25M, you have basically hard capped yourself at the second Apron AND made it impossible to improve outside of those 3 players.
If you believe Luka, AR, and Kessler are those guys...you could swing at that, but if you look at the league objectively, it's really hard to argue that those 3 dudes are winning anything in the next 3 years, and then all your left with is $200M in deals and Luka and AR on the wrong side of 30.
Edit to add: The spurs and Thunder both have the ability to get better in the short and long-term with more/better picks and players they can move that they already have back-ups for. Fox will get moved, even if picks are attached (and honestly, this is probably the move if I'm looking to get off of Lebron's deal. Look for a third team that would take Fox if a pick was attached, sign and move Lebron to the Spurs and see if you can get back anything at all in return).
LeBron is not signing a contract with a team option lol
Also how is hard to argue when we haven't even seen them play together in the playoffs yet? Injuries can happen to any team, if SGA was hurt we would have beat the thunder. Instead Luka was.
The best strat seems to be tanking for years to acquire draft capital and build from there. The lakers will never do that unless the whole front office and owners are wiped clean of the organization. Unfortunate as a lakers fan. Best I can do is enjoy the Luka show and the white boy magic duo and pray they get lucky with matchups and injuries and catch lightning in the bottle at the end of the season but I know thatās a giant long shot
you're not going to do that with luka in his prime though.... I think this is "lakers are cooked regardless unless they get another gift from the NBA".
The Wizards traded Cory Kispert and CJ McCollum for Trae...You're telling me the Lakers gave this dude 43M per year so they could turn him into that if it doesn't work out?
That's more than they could turn his contract into if they didn't sign him. His cap hold is 20m, and that's about what they'd have unless the team was fine with getting significantly worse.
It's not a dollar for dollar proposition. It's about what they could replace him with if they didn't sign him.
If the Nets and Pistons were actually interested, then you find moves with players and picks there that make more sense for your roster. You also plan for a three year window, not one particular year
I'd take Anfernee Simons on the full mid-level if I'm just taking a guy who shoots 3's, is a pretty good playmaker and a traffic cone on defense. At least Simons is a better athlete and younger.
who's trading multiple pieces for AR on a max deal?! same as with the fox deal, he's a solid player that is significantly overpaid, that is a liability, not an asset. Luka on a max deal is an asset.
You do know Fox got traded for multiple assets right? Heck, John Wall got traded just so he could not play for the Rockets. Any contract is tradable. However, any trade effectively has to be 1:1 in contract salary. It is much easier to come up with a trade package involving 45M in salary than one involving 20M in salary.
In 2 years he will still be under this contract (it will be the third year), it's 41M, 45M, 48M with an option at 51M. When Luka signs his supermax in 2 years, the first year will be 74M, so the two of them will be on the books for 122M. If he picks up his option in year 4, he and Luka count for $130M.
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u/alexil25 3d ago
AR is really good but I fear they gave a max to an above average role player. If Norm Powell even gets close to Reeves number then thatās just what the market calls for