Not everything Mitch Kupchak touches looks good in purple and gold. He rolled the dice in dealing away the bad contract of Luke Walton plus a first round pick for the handful of quality performances turned in by Ramon Sessions.
Such is the nature of the NBA. Some moves are strokes of genius, others are lapses in judgment. Acquiring Sessions was a panic move, pure and simple.
That Sessions is now reported to be on the verge of inking a two-year deal with the Charlotte Bobcats says it all. The Lakers were and still are desperate for a quality point guard. Kupchak did well to unload Walton’s dead weight deal but still had to crack the glass covering the panic button again to acquire Steve Nash.
Hopefully Nash won’t disappear in the pressure of the playoffs like Sessions did otherwise this will go down as the move that might end the Kupchak era. The Lakers could have easily lost out to the Thunder with Derek Fisher in the fashion they did with Sessions. By no means am I blaming the Lakers’ second straight second round collapse on Ramon’s Houdini under pressure act. Just saying that if he was supposed to be a difference maker the only difference made was not getting swept.
Desperate times do call for desperate measures…or something like that. The Lakers are clearly desperate. That they gave up a first round pick for a man that will keeping the job warm for Kemba Walker says it all.
We all liked what Sessions brought to the team. But even Kupchak had to realize why Ramon has made so many stops in such a short period of time in the NBA. Putting on a Lakers jersey doesn’t remedy shortcomings. Quite the opposite in fact, it magnifies them.
Sessions saw all his blemishes appear like a super model looking at her skin through magnifying mirror in sunlight. There were flashes of brilliance for sure. But the difference between the really goods that populate the NBA and the greats that dominate it is consistency. Sessions has never displayed that as a pro and Kupchak knew it. But he rolled the dice anyway.
Every move is a gamble. Nothing guarantees success. However these are desperate times around Lakerland and the moves keep getting more and more risky with less reward for the troubles. The reality is the Lakers tried to put a point guard now playing for the worst team in the league into the highest pressure packed situation he’s ever faced and got nothing in return but one more playoff win. The truth could be that Nash is only good enough for one more W in the postseason. That’s still not going to be good enough and the desperation will be all the more palpable.