Lakers Notes: Kobe, Gasol, Meeks
Kobe Bryant‘s knee injury doesn’t affect the Lakers’ short- or long-term picture, according to Grantland’s Zach Lowe, who writes that the team wasn’t going to make the playoffs this season either way and was already locked into Kobe’s two-year extension. In his latest Lakers-centric piece, Lowe writes that he’s talked to “dozens” of GMs, execs, coaches, and scouts around the league about Kobe’s new deal, and while some acknowledge that it makes business sense, none have been willing to call it a good contract. Here’s more on the Lakers:
- While it makes sense for the Lakers to gauge Pau Gasol‘s market value, Lowe notes that there are plenty of roadblocks to finding a logical trade partner, including Pau’s $19MM+ salary and L.A.’s desire not to take on long-term money. Lowe mentions the Cavaliers, Bobcats, Suns as potential players for Gasol, though it sounds like he’s speculating about the possible fit rather than reporting any actual discussions. Ultimately, the Lakers may be better off holding on to Pau and re-signing him to a two-year contract, says Lowe.
- As he faces another six weeks of recovery time, Bryant tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports that “only an idiot” would doubt his ability to return from his latest injury.
- Jodie Meeks will draw interest in free agency next summer and figures to earn a raise on this year’s $1.55MM salary if he continues to play well. However, if it’s up to him, the 26-year-old guard would “love to be a Laker for a long time,” as he says to Lang Greene of HoopsWorld.
- Faced with a scarcity of options at the point, the Lakers reached an agreement with 2012 lottery pick Kendall Marshall and made the signing official today.
Western Notes: Asik, Thunder, Spurs, Jefferson
It turned out to be Kendall Marshall making headlines tonight and not the much-discussed Omer Asik. Marshall agreed to terms with the Lakers this evening after being linked to the Grizzlies and Jazz in recent weeks. Here are some notes from around the Western Conference:
- Players on the Rockets roster are glad that Asik wasn’t dealt to another club today, according to Jenny Dial Creech of the Houston Chronicle. Several players expressed their appreciation of the center’s talents, including James Harden: “He’s one of the best big men in the NBA, defensively as well. He complements our team so well. We’re fortunate to have him on our team.“
- Speaking of the Rockets, Jeremy Lin sat down with Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld and discussed how he deals with trade rumors: “I still remember what it was like being on the edge of my seat and wondering if I was even going to be on a roster tomorrow… I’ve seen the whole Linsanity thing and I’ve seen the D-League and getting cut… I think having that wide scope of perspective helps me stay more balanced and stay more even keel through ups and downs.“
- Ken Berger of CBSSports.com opines that a large reason for the success of the Thunder and Spurs comes from how responsibly the two clubs have handled their assets. Rather than trading future draft picks for quick fixes, Berger notes that the two squads have focused on player development and have set themselves up for years of winning basketball.
- Richard Jefferson spoke with SiriusXM NBA Radio hosts Kenny Smith and Jason Goff and made it clear he wanted to play for a championship team, as Jody Genessy of the Deseret News passes along. “If I get an opportunity to play for a championship team, I’m going to go hunting for them… I have no loyalty… I’m a gun for hire.” Jefferson is on an expiring contract but is set to make $11MM this year.
- Paul Coro of AZ Central Sports examines how Jeff Hornacek‘s use of Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe gives the Suns a legitimate playmaker on the floor at all times.
- With so many injury problems and an overall lack of talent, Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated suggests that this might be the best time for the Lakers to blow up their roster and fully involve themselves in the rebuilding process.
Poll: How Many Games Will The Lakers Win?
The Lakers are 25 games into their season and sit just one contest below the .500 mark. Kobe Bryant, the face of their franchise, started out the year sidelined, recovering from a torn Achilles. Upon his return, he played in just 6 games before going down with another season ending injury. The team was just 2-4 with him in the lineup, but his recent injury has still caused a great deal of panic in Los Angeles. Sam Amick of USA Today went so far as to write that the club’s entire future is in jeopardy as a result of the future Hall of Famer going down.
It doesn’t help that fellow guards Steve Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar have had their own share of injury woes. Nash is at least a month away from returning. Blake will be sidelined a minimum of six more weeks. Farmar is set to return soon, but the team still felt it was necessary to add some backcourt depth, so tonight they agreed to terms with former lottery pick Kendall Marshall.
So the question: how many games will the Lakers end up winning this year? It’s true that they’re lacking depth right now, but it might be too early to completely give up on the season. Xavier Henry, Jordan Hill, Wesley Johnson, and Nick Young have all played surprisingly well, although you won’t find many people who believe those four along with Pau Gasol can lead a team to the playoffs. The Lakers have managed to play close to .500 basketball without much star power, but can they continue to succeed without Bryant?
Let’s hear your thoughts. Vote in the poll below, and leave a comment to share your thoughts!
How Many Total Games Will The Lakers End Up Winning This Season?
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31-41 48% (514)
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23-30 29% (315)
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Over 41 15% (159)
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22 or less 8% (81)
Total votes: 1,069
Lakers May Soon Acquire Point Guard
7:06pm: Pincus reveals in his full story that Mike D’Antoni has acknowledged the Lakers will probably need to add a point guard: “We’ll talk with [GM Mitch Kupchak]” said D’Antoni after practice on Thursday. “We’re looking but we don’t want to just get anybody.” Pincus notes that free agents Darius Morris and Chris Duhon played for D’Antoni in LA last season, but the writer also sees Jamaal Tinsley, Sebastian Telfair, and Shannon Brown as potential targets (among others).
More than likely, the Lakers will use their open roster spot to add a player on a non-guaranteed deal. “That’s what you [probably] do,” said Kupchak. “It’s actually more flexibility [than a 10-day contract].” Regardless, players can’t sign 10-day deals until January 6th, and the Lakers can’t afford to wait that long with Bryant, Blake, Farmar, and Nash all sidelined.
3:30pm: The Lakers are considering adding a guard, tweets Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times.
3:01pm: The Lakers’ backcourt took two more devastating hits today, as the team announced that Kobe Bryant will miss the next six weeks, while Steve Nash won’t return to action for at least four more weeks. According to the Lakers (Twitter link), Bryant suffered a fracture of the lateral tibial plateau in his left knee.
Steve Blake was already expected to miss another several weeks while he recovers from a torn UCL, and Jordan Farmar will be out for at least a few more days before being reevaluated next Tuesday. A report yesterday indicated that L.A. wasn’t in the market for a point guard, but as the injuries continue to pile up, you have to wonder how long the club can go without adding a healthy body to its backcourt, if only for insurance purposes. Coach Mike D’Antoni suggested Xavier Henry would take over point guard duties for the Lakers for now (Twitter link).
As our list of roster counts shows, the Lakers have an open 15th spot, and also have three players on non-guaranteed contracts, so the team has the flexibility to add a free agent. Contracts don’t become fully guaranteed for about another three weeks, so the Lakers could add a short-term replacement with the intention of waiving that player by January 7th.
Odds & Ends: Asik, Cavs, Turner, Green
Thursday is the final day the Rockets can swap Omer Asik for players they can flip at the trade deadline in February, and Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle hears GM Daryl Morey intends to pull off a deal before the team departs for Friday’s game at Indiana (Twitter link). The Rockets are unlikely to trade for a player better than they perceive Asik to be, Feigen writes in his latest piece on the talks, but it sounds like a trade will happen nonetheless, as conflicting reports obscure the notion of the Celtics as the front runners to land the Turkish center. Here’s more from around the league:
- Cavs owner Dan Gilbert isn’t pleased with the team’s sub-.500 start and has green-lighted GM Chris Grant to make deals, tweets Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. Cleveland has “varying degrees of interest” in Evan Turner and Jeff Green, writes Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal.
- Reggie Jackson will be up for an extension this summer, and the stumbling block could involve his role with the Thunder instead of financial concerns, as The Oklahoman’s Anthony Slater examines. Jackson tells Slater that he wants to start.
- Luke Ridnour started all 82 games for the Wolves last year, but he’s fallen from the rotation for the Bucks this season. The 11th-year vet says the lack of playing time has been tough on him, but he isn’t worried about how it may affect his free agency this summer, observes Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
- In an interesting piece for SBNation.com, Tom Ziller makes the case for why a general manager’s confidence in his ability to find value anywhere in a draft will prevent “institutional tanking” from happening in the NBA.
- Speaking of tanking, it’ll be tough for the Lakers to make the playoffs, says Jeff Caplan of NBA.com, who believes they’re better off not trying to do so.
Luke Adams contributed to this post.
Lakers Not Open To Pau Gasol Trade
The Lakers aren’t interested in trading Pau Gasol for now, having been encouraged by Gasol’s play in the last three games and his fence-mending efforts with coach Mike D’Antoni, who criticized his performance, report Ramona Shelburne and Marc Stein of ESPNLosAngeles.com. The Lakers have reportedly fielded offers for Gasol, and they engaged in exploratory talks with several teams, according to Shelburne and Stein, but they didn’t get too far.
The Rockets are one of the teams the Lakers spoke to about Gasol, but those talks never got serious, the ESPN scribes say. Stein thinks that the Lakers might be better off trading Gasol for Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin, but says such a deal would likely have to involve a third team and cautions that such talk is merely speculation (Twitter link).
The Lakers remain interested in Tyson Chandler and they’ve made exploratory calls on Iman Shumpert, but it doesn’t sound like the Knicks are biting. Gasol is set to hit free agency at season’s end, and the Lakers are apparently open to re-signing him.
Lakers Aren’t Seeking Point Guard
The Lakers have been playing without a true point guard for the past week, and despite discouraging news on Jordan Farmar today, the team remains hesitant to make a roster move, reports Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News. Farmar will be out at least another week as he continues to mend a torn left hamstring, according to Mike Trudell of Lakers.com (Twitter link).
Farmar had been optimistic about returning as early as Friday, but an examination today wasn’t as promising as he’d hoped, and it’s unlikely he’ll return until after Christmas, Medina notes. Steve Nash is still out, and Steve Blake won’t be back for at least five more weeks, leaving the point guard position to Kobe Bryant, Xavier Henry and Nick Young.
The Lakers are a tax team, but they have plenty of flexibility, with an open roster spot and three players on non-guaranteed contracts. Still, the Lakers don’t expect to add anyone via signing or a trade. GM Mitch Kupchak last week acknowledged interest in Leandro Barbosa, Chris Duhon and Darius Morris, but Kupchak said then that he didn’t expect there was anyone worth signing. Other recent rumors suggest the team could be involved in trades to address other parts of the roster, as the Lakers are apparently fielding offers for Pau Gasol and have spoken to the Knicks about Tyson Chandler and Iman Shumpert.
Wesley Johnson Hopes For Long-Term Stay With Lakers
The Lakers lead the NBA with 10 players on expiring deals, and Wesley Johnson is one of those 10, meaning he doesn’t necessarily have a future in Los Angeles beyond 2014. However, as he tells Lang Greene of HoopsWorld, Johnson is hoping this isn’t his only season as a Laker.
“This is definitely a place I want to be,” Johnson said. “I love Los Angeles. I love the organization. I love the people that I’ve been around since I’ve been there. I definitely think this could be a long-term thing. We just have to wait and see.”
Much has been made of the Lakers’ desire to preserve cap space for next summer. Even after extending Kobe Bryant, the team should have more than enough room to fit either a max free agent, or multiple second- or third-tier free agents. Still, Johnson is earning the minimum salary this season, and if he’s content with signing for that amount again next year, the club’s cap space wouldn’t be compromised. L.A. will also hold Johnson’s Non-Bird rights at year’s end, which would allow the club to pay him slightly more than the minimum on a contract up to four years.
Johnson, 26, is off to the best start of his four-year NBA career this season, averaging 8.3 PPG and shooting 40.5% on threes in 25 contests for the Lakers. The former fourth overall pick attributes his relative success in the early going to Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni, as he tells Greene.
“He told me to just worry about playing basketball,” Johnson said. “He said if you play aggressive and play hard you can pretty much do what you want out there as long as you play hard. So I definitely feel a lot more comfortable out there than I have the last few years.”
Odds & Ends: Asik, Gasol, Wolves, Mirotic
With December 15th in our rearview and the trade deadline two months ahead of us, things should start to heat up quickly, as our Luke Adams noted in his Trade Season Primer. Here are some trade-related rumors as well as some odds and ends from around the league on Tuesday night:
- With two days remaining until the Rockets self-imposed December 19th deadline, Marc Stein of ESPN.com tweets that there is a consensus expectation that Omer Asik will be moved in a three-team deal in which he ends up in Boston or Philly.
- Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports adds the Cavs and the Hawks to Stein’s list and says that there is a fifth mystery team in the mix for the center’s services. (Twitter links)
- Meanwhile, Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld tweets that he is hearing that an Asik deal may go down on Wednesday, though he cautions that nothing is definite.
- Kennedy also writes about the possibility of the Lakers finally pulling the trigger on a deal to send the disgruntled Pau Gasol out of Los Angeles, opining that while the team has overvalued the Spaniard in the past, the combination of his contract, his struggles this season and his issues with Mike D’Antoni may finally be enough for the Lakers to move him.
- As Tim Faklis of Canis Hoopus writes, the Timberwolves don’t have the assets to complete another significant trade this season. Faklis concludes that any deal could only involve some combination of Dante Cunningham, Luc Mbah a Moute, Alexey Shved and/or Shabazz Muhammad. Referencing Faklis’ story, Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN tweets that the Wolves are limited in their flexibility and that he is told to expect “status quo” in Minnesota for now.
- We know that not only have the Bulls met with Nikola Mirotic, but that they’re aggressively trying to bring him over from Spain for next season. Nick Friedell of ESPN Chicago tweets that the Bulls “love” Mirotic and that if they get him stateside this summer that it should be considered their big offseason move. To put that into context, Friedell adds that the Bulls consider Mirotic more valuable than the top-10 protected first round pick of the Bobcats that they own. (Twitter links)
Pacific Notes: Suns, Kaman, Gasol
Let’s check in on the latest updates out of the Pacific Division….
- The Suns‘ impressive start has taken most of us by surprise, but it hasn’t altered the team’s roster or trade plans at all, as Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic details. “During my introductory press conference, the one thing I said we’d never do is pass on a chance to get a star, and that doesn’t change,” said GM Ryan McDonough. “The biggest misconception about our offseason moves was that we were trying to lose. We identified a good group of players who we thought could show more than they had in their careers…. One of the reasons we made four trades in the offseason is to make sure we didn’t have to do anything during the season.”
- The role Chris Kaman‘s had with the Lakers this season is “absolutely not” what he was looking for, writes Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com. However, Kaman says he hasn’t heard anything from the team about the possibility of a trade, so he’s focusing on working hard and being ready to play when the time comes.
- Breaking down Pau Gasol‘s trade value in an Insider-only piece, ESPN.com’s Kevin Pelton concludes that the Lakers may not be looking at much of a return based on Pau’s play so far this season.
- Earlier today, we heard that the Kings may be a suitor for trade candidate Jordan Crawford. A report yesterday had suggested Sacramento was in the market for a pass-first point guard, a label that wouldn’t seem to apply to Crawford despite his career-high 5.5 APG so far.