Leading up to Thursday’s draft, there were reports indicating that Golden State wanted to buy a second-round pick. The Warriors secured a second-rounder in the 2017 draft when they sent $3.5MM in cash to Chicago, but the Bulls were so harshly criticized for the move – which landed Jordan Bell in Oakland – that it wasn’t clear how eager teams would be to deal with the Dubs this time around.
While Golden State didn’t ultimately make a draft-night trade, it wasn’t for lack of trying — or for a lack of a trade partner. The Warriors explored multiple options and had a potential deal in the works, but the player they wanted was selected by another club, so they didn’t pull the trigger, tweets Thompson.
Here’s more from around the Pacific:
- With so many of the Warriors‘ centers potentially on the way out the door this summer, the team will likely need to add at least one big man in free agency. Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic explores some options, with a focus on Kyle O’Quinn and Dwight Howard.
- The Clippers have considered the possibility of moving out of the Staples Center and into an Inglewood arena at some point in the future, but the City of Inglewood is facing a second lawsuit related to the team’s proposed stadium. Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com has the details.
- No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton is ready to make an immediate impact for the Suns and to prove that centers remain as relevant as ever in the modern NBA, writes Greg Moore of The Arizona Republic.
- In his latest mailbag, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton explores offseason roster options for the Lakers, including the possibility of a Kemba Walker trade.
All these talks of the Lakers trading Ball. I get it, his dad is a clown, he a huge mouth and is very annoying but that’s not enough to trade the kid. He doesn’t look like he’s going to be a big time scorer in this league but he doesn’t need to be, he helps keep the ball moving, he is a facilitator, very mature and selfless player which you can see by his assists last year and that should only get better, he can rebound and he plays defense and really besides the injuries he didn’t have a bad year and is only going to get better. In fact I think if Lebron is going to come to the Lakers he’d want to have a player like Ball on the team is a smart basketball player on the court.
James has complimented the PGs on all the teams he’s considering– Hill, Simmons, Paul, & Ball. Imagine Paul & Ball on LAL as an attraction. Ball’s dad is not likely to be much of a problem for James and I will leave it at that.
Seriously, how could a pass first pg be viewed as a bad thing?
Because LBJ is a point forward who runs the offense. You pair him with shooters, not with guys that can’t shoot.
First off, LBJ (Lyndon Blaines Johnson) was the 36th President of the United States and secondly, Lebron’s full name is Lebron Raymone James thus his initials are “LRJ”. You can’t have two initials from one name …
Mr. Perfect, there was no president named Lyndon BLAINES Johnson.
2nd, he spells it LeBron.
So while you’re criticizing someone else about names you got 2 wrong yourself.
How he spells it is irrelevant. LeBron is 1 word, thus only the first letter is used. It’s pretty basic, despite this generation’s disdain for proper word usage.
Tell us more about how our generation has failed, while our world burns and the economy redistributes more and more money to the top 1%.
In this league and especially with Lebron you need to able to shoot. Lonzo is a bad shooter. Lebron gets very frustrated when his teammates don’t make shots. I could easily see Lonzo losing confidence early and that affecting his play. He’s a bad fit with Lebron.
Guess you didnt watch what the lakers did this year….second half of the season lonzo was league average from 3 and from the field. He had a bad start but came around.
Shooting roughly 31% from 3 is not league average.
Also lonzo when not shoot still grabs boards, assists and plays great defense to make up for it.
No one is arguing Ball’s overall skill set. The question is if he fits with LeBron.
For the Lakers to seriously contend next year, they need two of LBJ, George and Leonard. Ball would fit great with George or Leonard but not at all with LBJ.
If the Lakers don’t get LBJ, then they shouldn’t deal Ball.
GS still ended up with another great pick with Jacob Evans
I’m pretty excited about him. What I’m hearing is he’ll be ready to play minutes this year which should be more impact than similar style Mccaw did his first year.
I still can’t stomach Durant was up 3-1 and lost to Golden State. Quit on OKC and joined the Warriors, the ultimate coward and disgrace of the NBA Kevin TheRat.
Durant hardly cares what you think.
What he cares about is going to work every day and enjoying it. In OKC he watched a knucklehead dominate the ball and make stupid decisions late in the fourth quarter.
Now Durant goes to work, moves the ball, plays tough defense with his teammates, has the Bay Area to invest his money, and he’s loving life, despite the naysayers.
You’re a free agent as well, and you can leave your lousy job anytime you want and work somewhere else. Great country isn’t it?
Quit on OKC? He was there 8 years.
Plus OKC has the same salary cap as every other team. Why don’t they create an environment players want to go and play?
They signed Paul George, they went after a free agent. OKC doesn’t own Kevin Durant, those days are over. He’s a free man, remember?
Become a good team, become a destination for players. OKC can do that, can’t they?Or does the management suck? Well, sorry about that.
Kevin Garnett played 12 years in Minnesota and was loyal to the team. They never won anything. He later said that he stayed too long with the wolves and should have left earlier.
Fortunately he played on one successful team and won the ring in Boston. Obviously he would have been happier had he played with like-minded winning players a few more years than just the very end of his career.
There’s a lesson there for anyone not just Kevin Durant. Go to work where you can be happy and be careful about company loyalty because they will fire you in a hot second.
Loyalty to a company those days are over. Look at Russell Westbrook he went and got his max money and took care of himself and didn’t leave room to get other quality players like Durant did, like Ben Roethlisberger is going to do, like Dirk Nowitzki and Tim Duncan dead. Like LeBron Wade and Bosh did in Miami they took a little less to fit them all in.
Russell Westbrook, nope he’s getting his, forget being a company man. And that’s fine. But Durant has to do what he has to do.
Jilted lover was so last season. Time to be an adult and move on.
So… Howard, Draymond, KD, Klay, Curry. Why play the regular season?
Yes that would be cool. Draymond wouldn’t have to get every rebound as Dwight average is double figures and among the league leaders every year. Might block a couple shots too.
Yea it would be a little ridiculous. But I see it happening. Dwight wants that ring.
Don’t you think he would take more money with a club in the East like Boston or someone else who was close?
GSW GM has stated he wants the team younger… but maybe he just meant cheap, and Howard will already have been paid in the buyout and not be looking at salary.
Why on earth would the Lakers need/want Kemba, they have Ball, & probably would be too expensive/unhappy to be a sub. Unless they want him to play the SG using the flexibility that Ball gives you with his height. Really grates me that people keeps having a go at him about his dad, he is a super talented young man, & I only hear about his father through fans moaning about him, I don’t even hear from himself, so I think is a lot of haters out there, in any case is nothing to do with the kid, judge him for his playing, & as I said before he was equal to Mitchell as the 2nd best rookie in my opinion.
Equal to Mitchell?! Donavan Mitchell?!
Well Ball wouldn’t be on the Lakers if they traded for Kemba (as the scenario above would be adding LeBron, PG, and Kawhi in addition to Kemba meaning Ball, Kuzma, Hart, and Ingram would all likely be gone). If the Lakers wanted Kemba, they’d likely have to include whoever wasn’t included in a potential Kawhi deal.
Ball being as good as Mitchell is laughable. Ball had a solid year, but it wasn’t even close to Mitchell. I’d say that Ball didn’t even have the best year amongst Lakers rookies (Kuzma).
Lakers need to trade Lonzo. Kid isntnearly good enough to justify having his dad around.
I can’t see a warriors team with 0 egos and plays an unselfish style of basketball pursue a player like Dwight.
The only negative I see is that Dwight doesn’t play when he’s nicked up. That doesn’t fly too well with guys like Klay Thompson and Curry who play through pain.