Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2013 9:25:08 GMT -6
{{{General manager Balls O'Hard walks into the room with piece of paper and walks directly to the mic stand. waits for the room to quiet down a bit and looks down to his paper focused on the upcoming task. The room silences. O'Hard clears his throat and begins.}}}
Balls O'Hard:Good morning, and thank anyone and everyone who showed up. Let's get to the obvious first. We're here to reflect on last season, to talk about the offseason, and let you guys know our expectations for this season. As everyone in this room knows, this organization's ownership group is admittedly not known for their patience . But last season we were given to build slow, acquire assets and try and build a long term winner.A winner that would make our franchise name, the Lakers, synonymous with the word success. As we saw, last year was a tough year for us. We moved one of our better players in hopes to get better for the future and finished a few games out of playoff seeding. I can not reiterate enough how tough it was for our organization, both players and front office, to sit out the playoffs.
Balls O'Hard:But with every failure comes a learning experience, a memory to hold on to. A feeling to build off of. We have told our leaders, KJ, Mookie, Cedric, to hold on to this feeling when a game gets hard and remember it. Remember that we don't ever want to have that feeling again and push harder, and by the look in those young men's faces, I believe we'll do that.
Balls O'Hard:Now coming into the offseason we were given directive to speed up the rebuilding process, but not at the cost of the long-term mission. We're here to win the war not just the battle, but also understand you have to win battles to win the war.
Balls O'Hard:The first big move or piece to the offseason was admittedly getting lucky in the lottery and moving from the 6 spot to the 2 spot. Once our pick came up there was little to no doubt who we'd select. We had Mutumbo and LJ rated 1 and 1a. We selected LJ who we think fits into our city's culture and will become a fan favorite from game 1 with his posterizing style of play. Larry is a bit undersized for his position but he plays above the rim. He bring the 'Shock and Awe' type of attack to our front court that we so desperately need. Larry is a great scorer and rebounder. While he leaves a little to be desired on the offensive end, we think that's a teaching point for him. We have very high expectations for Larry and have all the faith in the world he can meet those expectations.
Balls O'Hard:By drafting Larry, we had some redundancy in our line-up with Wayman, a true warrior in the game. We ended up deciding it wouldn't be fair to not give Wayman the minutes he deserved and set him into a good situation in Washington where we hope he can succeed. We got an asset for Wayman, which ended up being Stanley Roberts who is a do-it-allbig man with the size we needed at the 5 spot. Stanley averaged 14-10-2 last season for L.S.U. and we think he can come in right away and become a perennial double-double guy for us. When you look at the landscape of the league, you have to be able to defend the post and rebound. We think Stanley and LJ can do just that.
Balls O'Hard: We moved back into the draft again after Stanley to take Mark Macon who averaged 20 points a game in a 4 year career at temple. We look at Mark as the beginning of us plugging what is a huge deficiency on our team, 3 point shooting. Last year we were bottom 3 in percentage because we had no shooting. With Mark, Mookie, and we believe eventually LJ we think we can get somewhere near the middle of the list in the next two years. The thing we loved about Mark was despite being known as a scorer, he was very solid on the defensive end. He won't be an all league defender anytime soon, but he can certainly hold down his position
Balls O'Hard:Now with that, we made another ancillary move and ended up moving Manute Bol for a pick next year and Otis Thorpe. We highly treasured what Manute brought to us in the form of defense and personality in the locker room but we were offered a package in which we couldn't turn down. We got Otis Thorpe who averaged 17-9 and that pick which we think can net us a future asset in next years draft.
Balls O'Hard:With all the player movement, both additions and subtractions we know it will take some time to gel.We know we're not going to start off on day 1 with 3 rookies and blow the hinges off the door, but we think we can seriously compete for a playoff spot this season. Is making the playoffs do or die? No because we know we have a solid foundation, but for us it would be the cherry on top on an offseason we believe we accomplished every goal we set out for personelle-wise.
Balls O'Hard:Now comes the part for me to stop boring you and to get interactive. Does anyone have any questions? We have Larry Johnson and Kevin Johnson on speakerphone as well.
.
Balls O'Hard:Good morning, and thank anyone and everyone who showed up. Let's get to the obvious first. We're here to reflect on last season, to talk about the offseason, and let you guys know our expectations for this season. As everyone in this room knows, this organization's ownership group is admittedly not known for their patience . But last season we were given to build slow, acquire assets and try and build a long term winner.A winner that would make our franchise name, the Lakers, synonymous with the word success. As we saw, last year was a tough year for us. We moved one of our better players in hopes to get better for the future and finished a few games out of playoff seeding. I can not reiterate enough how tough it was for our organization, both players and front office, to sit out the playoffs.
Balls O'Hard:But with every failure comes a learning experience, a memory to hold on to. A feeling to build off of. We have told our leaders, KJ, Mookie, Cedric, to hold on to this feeling when a game gets hard and remember it. Remember that we don't ever want to have that feeling again and push harder, and by the look in those young men's faces, I believe we'll do that.
Balls O'Hard:Now coming into the offseason we were given directive to speed up the rebuilding process, but not at the cost of the long-term mission. We're here to win the war not just the battle, but also understand you have to win battles to win the war.
Balls O'Hard:The first big move or piece to the offseason was admittedly getting lucky in the lottery and moving from the 6 spot to the 2 spot. Once our pick came up there was little to no doubt who we'd select. We had Mutumbo and LJ rated 1 and 1a. We selected LJ who we think fits into our city's culture and will become a fan favorite from game 1 with his posterizing style of play. Larry is a bit undersized for his position but he plays above the rim. He bring the 'Shock and Awe' type of attack to our front court that we so desperately need. Larry is a great scorer and rebounder. While he leaves a little to be desired on the offensive end, we think that's a teaching point for him. We have very high expectations for Larry and have all the faith in the world he can meet those expectations.
Balls O'Hard:By drafting Larry, we had some redundancy in our line-up with Wayman, a true warrior in the game. We ended up deciding it wouldn't be fair to not give Wayman the minutes he deserved and set him into a good situation in Washington where we hope he can succeed. We got an asset for Wayman, which ended up being Stanley Roberts who is a do-it-allbig man with the size we needed at the 5 spot. Stanley averaged 14-10-2 last season for L.S.U. and we think he can come in right away and become a perennial double-double guy for us. When you look at the landscape of the league, you have to be able to defend the post and rebound. We think Stanley and LJ can do just that.
Balls O'Hard: We moved back into the draft again after Stanley to take Mark Macon who averaged 20 points a game in a 4 year career at temple. We look at Mark as the beginning of us plugging what is a huge deficiency on our team, 3 point shooting. Last year we were bottom 3 in percentage because we had no shooting. With Mark, Mookie, and we believe eventually LJ we think we can get somewhere near the middle of the list in the next two years. The thing we loved about Mark was despite being known as a scorer, he was very solid on the defensive end. He won't be an all league defender anytime soon, but he can certainly hold down his position
Balls O'Hard:Now with that, we made another ancillary move and ended up moving Manute Bol for a pick next year and Otis Thorpe. We highly treasured what Manute brought to us in the form of defense and personality in the locker room but we were offered a package in which we couldn't turn down. We got Otis Thorpe who averaged 17-9 and that pick which we think can net us a future asset in next years draft.
Balls O'Hard:With all the player movement, both additions and subtractions we know it will take some time to gel.We know we're not going to start off on day 1 with 3 rookies and blow the hinges off the door, but we think we can seriously compete for a playoff spot this season. Is making the playoffs do or die? No because we know we have a solid foundation, but for us it would be the cherry on top on an offseason we believe we accomplished every goal we set out for personelle-wise.
Balls O'Hard:Now comes the part for me to stop boring you and to get interactive. Does anyone have any questions? We have Larry Johnson and Kevin Johnson on speakerphone as well.
.
