What We Want With The Off-season
Everyone continues to spark up dream scenarios for the Lakers off-seasons to put us in a better spot for contention. What we should be doing is opening our eyes to see how improbable that really is and looking for better realistic scenarios that are likely to happen.
Trading for Paul George I feel would be a horrible choice on so many levels, and I feel the FO has the same feelings about it. Now preparing the team so that we're something George would look at when he becomes a FA is something we should do. To do so we have a few options:
First is obviously trade for Jimmy Butler. While I'm not holding my breath that this happens (and not planning on it assuming we'd have to give so much up), we'd have him on contract for awhile, and that would make signing FAs this year easier and quickly bolster our defense.
Assuming we don't make any huge trades, keep most of our young valuable players for another year, don't get rid of the Mozgov and Deng contracts (lets get real ok), and possibly grab a solid FA or two, we have a few FAs to look at that are realistic signings. While some of these guys are more realistic than the others, I think all have possibilities of joining, and all bring great things to our team.
Team Needs: Floor spacing big men, defense in every position (mostly wing/interrior), 3pt shooters, defense, good defenders, players that like defense, you get the point.
3 and D guys: KCP, JJ Redick, Sefolosha
Defense is all: Roberson, Allen, Noel
Floor Spacers: Ilyasova, Olynyk, Millsap (Trading at least 1 PF/C before signing another 0_0)
PGs: Teague, Collison, Mills
SGs: JJ Redick, KCP, Sefolosha, Roberson
Big Men: Olynyk, Ilyasova, Millsap
I'd really prefer the bolded names if at all possible...
Starting 5 possibilities:
______ Russell, Ingram, Randle, Mozgov - 3 shooters, 3 playmakers, bad D
Russell, _____ , Ingram, Randle, Mozgov - 2/3 shooters, 3 playmakers, bad D
Nwaba, Russell, Ingram, Deng, _____ - 3 shooters, 2 playmakers, floor spacing
Bench possibilities:
Clarkson, Nwaba, Brewer, Nance, Black/Zubac
Clarkson, Nwaba, Brewer, Deng, Nance/Black
Clarkson, Brewer, Randle, Nance, Mozgov
You can see how signing something like Patty Mills and Sefolosha would be huge for the team.
Russell, Nwaba, Sefolosha, Randle, Mozgov
Mills, Clarkson, Ingram, Deng, Nance
Or signing KCP and Roberson would even bolster our defense on both the bench and starters
Russell, KCP, Ingram, Randle, Mozgov
Clarkson, Nwaba, Roberson, Deng, Nance
Keep in mind that this would keep us with possibly the pick to add to the mix (but would probably come off the bench, so starting 5 still holds) and it would have us retain all of our assets for possible trades down the line. What we all don't see is that the possibility of more trades opens up next season as well, not to mention the Deng and Mozgov contracts get easier to trade with time, young players get better, therefore we would have better assets, easier contracts to move, and possibly better trade targets (hopefully near deadline and then bring in George :D)
Any other realistic FAs that you see we should add?