Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[KillerLeft]

Another thing mentioned that raised my eyebrows: AD's fit with "Lively, Gafford and PJW" was specifically mentioned as a positive. That, to me, means that Harrison literally doesn't understand NBA basketball. Maybe I'll eat crow on that later, but I HATE the idea of playing AD at the 4, even part time, really, but much more if the plan is to keep BOTH Gafford and Lively, which that press conference sure made it seem is the plan.

In all these conversations about trading Gafford this year, I kept coming back to Luka's contract, both current and the one he was about to sign, wondering how it would even be possible to keep BOTH centers once they reached the point where Lively's rookie contract was over. I guess we know now how they're going to do that, financially. They're opting out of the obligation to pay their top 5 guy the supermax he 100% was going to get. It's just not something any of us would've considered before last night.

Let's say this does make their defense better (they'll own the glass, but outside of that, I don't expect they'll defend teams like the Celtics any better - the opposite, more likely)...what about offense? Lively and Gafford are PICK AND ROLL BIGS. Is AD going to stand in the corner like Porzingis used to? How is THAT side of the floor going to work? I doubt they'll even be a pick and roll team anymore, actually. This is about to be a system (implemented on the fly, in February) tailored around Kyrie and AD, neither of whom are pick and roll players. How do Lively and Gafford even fit into that? What even is someone's theory on how that could work in abstract imagination???

If they're truly planning to keep both of those incumbent centers, I no longer have the ability to even try to understand what this is going to do.

I hate it.