The Blake Show to replace Conan?

Great point about the Magic being in a terrible situation. It was ballsy to move Rashard for Gilbert, but the upside was great on paper until the reality hit like a hangover. They are in tight spot with the talent they have, honestly, they probably need to blow the whole team up in order to get things back on track but who wants those contracts?

This is the same problem the Lakers have. Kobe is 33 and declining and everyone else on the team is paid exorbitant amounts and the youngest player they could move forward with has bad knees and an even worse work ethic (Bynum). Moving to the Lakers is appealing in the fact its the Lakers, but when you look at how they will do in the next few seasons it looks like they will be lottery bound for a few years. I dont think an established star who is used to the post-season wants to take part in a massive rebuild. The Lakers painted themselves into a corner by keeping this squad together and they will have to pay the price by losing until they can get those contracts off the books. They desperately need younger talent and they dont have it.

Boston actually put themselves in a better rebuild position. They already have Rondo and acquiring Jeff Green this year was a very smart move for them. Garnett, Pierce and Allen will all be leaving soon, but there will be some transition time and they have proven shrewd at getting younger players to sign for reduced money. They actually look in better shape than the Lakers.

The Clippers are in a great situation, we have a great young core and a very tradeable player in Kaman. Im not saying I dont want Dwight, I just think hes an unrealistic target for us. What we need to do is focus on RFA’s or players still on rookie deals. Renting D-12 for a season would be great for a season, but can we convince him that this is the place for him to finish his career? Im very skeptical about that. He can leave once hes done without any regrets. In other words, we have no security and very little time to state our case. If we targeted someone who is a newer entry into the league, closer to the age of our core and still on rookie scale we get (assuming the RFA clause stays in place) about 6 years to sell them on the Clippers for life. This is why I advocate trading Kaman and taking on a bad contract (Rip Hamilton) to fill our need at 3 and then scoring a prospect like Monroe (rookie) to replace Kaman in the rotation. In that scenario we get Monroe for the rest of his rookie deal and get him as an RFA for up to another 5 or 6 years. Much more security in that trade.

Theres also the reality that we havent been able to trade for a major star since Elgin Baylor walked the halls of Staples Center. We give Elgin a lot of grief but look at who he brought in: Elton Brand, Andre Miller (that was bad for us ultimately, but his talent was amazing), Sam Cassell and trading for Corey Maggette (as a rookie, quite a steal). Our FA signings have been terrible. We only signed Baron Davis as a major FA and that was in large part because of Elton still being undecided where he was going to go. Our track record on trading into talent is terrible since the Dunleavy reign and our FA acquisitions have historically been awful. Our management has also been more cheap than spendy. Blake or not, there is a problem with the organization that keeps agents and players from wanting to come here. That’s what we need to get over and it is why our focus should be on guys that are RFA’s or rookie scale still. We need to trade into talent AND security over sitting on our hands with a bag full of money and shooting our wad on guys who can write their ticket to 29 of 30 teams.