Los Angeles Lakers: Can the young core survive another failed AD saga?
By Ronald Agers
Rajon Rondo said the locker room was already a mess…what makes this different?
Oh I know I have some Lakers fans mad now. How can the Pelicans ask for all of the young players for a superstar like Anthony Davis? The Lakers did it six months ago and they’re basically doing it again. How was the locker room for the last half of the season? Anyone watch that? According to what Rajon Rondo told Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report, the effects of the Lakers rumors was evident…
"“Every guy on our team, LeBron was their favorite player growing up,” Rondo says. “Everyone had the shoes, his jersey. You’re the biggest fan in the world. It’s like you’re playing with MJ, and then you get there, and it’s like your mom and dad, or the person that you looked up to and idolized, doesn’t want you. And then to have that sitting in your gut, not knowing. Guys aren’t at the age where they can have a man-to-man conversation versus texting you. Everybody wants to text you: ‘How you doing? We cool?’ People don’t understand how to have a real conversation and talk out problems.”"
I can’t say that Magic Johnson’s press conference after the fact helped things out…
I remember that game. It was on a Sunday against the 76ers and the Lakers got blown back to the Staples Center losing by about 20 points. What was worse was the overall defense and competitive drive giving up 143 points. It was ugly and the Lakers basically quit except for Kyle Kuzma. It started a funk that the Lakers never recovered from. In the video, Magic Johnson blamed Dell Demps for the leaks. Now Demps is gone and like it or not, there are many that will be coaching Griffin to handle negotiations like this…
Pels should hang tough and demand Lonzo, Ingram, Kuzma and the 4th pick. If LeBron wants AD that badly, as he did at the deadline, make the Lakers PAY. Hey, LeBron already alienated Zo, BI and Kuz, anyway, by wanting to trade them.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) June 13, 2019
Get used to this because that is how things look optics wise around the NBA. No check that, that’s what the Lakers young core thought around the locker room after the deadline. The question here is…
Do you really think the trust is sustainable enough to last an 82 game season? If you do, what happened in the last six months to change things? If the locker room was fractured before after this move didn’t work, what makes you think the locker room will be unified this season?
There is a way to clear a lot of this mess up…