The asking price to take Westbrooks contract was a 1 all season.

They gave up the 1st to undo a mistake they made at Lebron's request.

Getting him off the books OPENED the future up, it most assuredly did not mortgage it.
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That’s certainly one way to spin it. Others would also acknowledge that trading away a future 1st round pick to improve the team in the present is the exact definition of “mortgaging the future.”
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Yeah well those 'others' wouldn't seem to recognize the concepts of sunk costs or distressed assets on a balance sheet with a hard cap.

Getting Russell Westbrook the hell off the roster will improve the team now and well into the future by freeing up space to allow them retain depth while simultaneously utilizing bird rights on players they can then retain for several years into the future.

The only time they mortgaged the future was when they acquiesced to wrong-headed insistence of the worst roster builder in recent NBA history and brought an expensive braindead chucker onto this roster.
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They could just as easily have let Westbrook expire without trading the 1st round pick and had all kinds of room to maneuver in the offseason. I’ve never said it was a bad move to do it but there can be no doubt that what they did was a move to help the present, one certainly prompted at LeBron’s request.
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In so doing they couldn't have then acquired players with bird rights who can be extended beyond the cap. That's one of the reasons expiring contracts can have value.

I understand you worship Lebron, but I'd suggest you not be as narrowminded in your thinking as he is as well.

The ways moving that pick helped the Lakers going forward are obvious. It didn't just help them for this season, it helped them for the next several.
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The efficacy of such a plan long-term all depends on how good you think the players they brought in are. None of them move the needle for me and re-upping them (how much is Russell going to get?) may restrict the team from bringing in another star (like, say, Kyrie Irving who apparently expressed some interest in playing in LA).

It’s still a move that helps the present more than anything else.
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Yes, Kyrie Irving has been the alternative for some time now.

How's the Kyrie Irving experience been working out for teams lately?

Lord knows that chasing ball dominant 30 something guards has a history of just going swimmingly for teams. And yeah, that would've been CLEARLY more forward looking than trading for younger players with more varied and complementary skill-sets...
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Worked out pretty nicely for the team that beat the 73 win Warriors. Kyrie is the same player he was then as well.

You don’t win titles in this league by assembling a bunch of mediocre players and giving them long term contracts. You do it the same way the Lakers did 3 years ago, by putting stars together.
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'Lately'

He'll be 8 years removed from that effort next year. Odd that you didn't cite any of those teams. Or the 4 seasons prior to that one.

Oh that's right - LeBron is the sun and NBA just orbits around him. Nothing that has ever happened when Kyrie WASN'T playing with Lebron is relevant.
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Lebron crying to the league office and getting Green suspended is the biggest bitch move of all time in the NBA.
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Hes such a bitch. A ho, if you will.
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Draymond probably shouldn’t have kicked multiple players in the balls in the same postseason. Should have been easy enough to avoid that one.
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Kyrie has learned the error of his ways, yes. He wants back with LeBron and the Lakers should be doing everything they possibly can to make that happen if they want any shot at another title this decade.
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World Baseball Classic final beat all NBA games this year including All-Star game in ratings. And that game was on FS1.
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Oklahoma City Thunder .500 record
Luka and Kyrie. Less than that
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