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Originally Posted by ArmyBimmerDude
No dont missunderstand me. Kwame Brown is terrible. A bust. A bum. The only thing I question is whether giving up those picks will come back to bite them. Counting that point guard, thats 3 1st round picks. Plus for a team that refuses to go above the cap and pay the luxury tax, will they be able to keep Gasol long term AND sign Bynum when its his turn? Are they going to play Odom in the 3 spot? Short term, this is brilliant. Gasol will be reenergized now that he's playing for a winner and whenever Bynum comes back and everyone gels, you can definitely put their starting 5 up against anyone. Long term is what I'm looking at. You can't pay three guys max contracts unless you decide to go the way of the Yankees. Plus the triangle offense isn't the easiest to learn. May take him sometime.
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I think the team right now is young enough to sustain a 1st round pick this season and one in 2010. Especially if the hope if to perform well enough to be out of the lottery, where any of the players will be long shots anyway. Also, Lakers owning their own D-League team allows them a great resource of un-tapped talents.
As far as salary cap room goes, look at the break down:
2007 - $61,380,463 (above $55 cap)
2008 - $56,721,706
2009 - $41,291,602
2010 - $41,720,840
2011 - $8,384,643
They are already over the cap by bringing in Gasol. His is locked in for the next three years, so is Jordan Farmar and Bynum is in for two more. They are essentially making a run at the gold for the next three years and have not much worry on cap room. If they really need the cap, they got VladRad's contract to trade for any team that might want a sharp shooter (sharp is relative though).
Odom is more comfortable at the 3 spot. Simply look at his stats in the first two months, and the past 3 weeks when he shifted to 4. He gets intimidated at the 4. Luke does a better job at 4 then Odom does.
This is a quick-fix plus a potential long term goal. Although the triangle is hard to learn, Phil has already shown the willingness to compromise. For the next two months while Bynum recovers, Phil might just stray enough to make it work for Paul.
This was a wonderful trade and I'll bet it striked fear in every other coach in the NBA. Not saying that they will run out and scramble up their roster themselves but it would definitely be bold to say they didn't think oh crap when they heard about the trade.
Just think, at the start of the season, Lakers probably would've needed to give up Bynum AND/OR Lamar to get Paul. Now we got him for practically nothing. If (and a very important IF I'll concede) the team can gel when Bynum returns, can you really say this won't be a championship contender?