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Wacky 2021 NBA draft it was lots of surprises in the top 10 or 15 or so which are we're fascinating but another even bigger surprise there had been a few rumblings to this effect and ironic that we of course did not do the offseason outlook for this team which I'm kind of glad we didn't because we wouldn't really have discussed this

prospect that much and now we can be more accurate knowing that their big move is made the early lakers have Russell Westbrook on their team.

They do and the terms before we get into the substance the wizard's traded Russell Westbrook a 2024 second a 2028 second to the lakers for Kyle Kuzma,

the previous called well Pope Montrez Harrel who opted in and the number 22 pick in the draft and this yeah the possibility you know the lakers going after a high profile point guard was there and it was certainly more

possible for the lakers to get into the mix on Russell Westbrook then it was Chris Paul when you consider the logistical difficulties and the team that Chris Paul is on really wanting to keep him.

But this is a massive deal not only because of what Russell Westbrook starwaterches the 2016 17 MVP and you know fixture in the league but because the lakers won the championship their last healthy season and now they have a very different core than they did before.

Yeah after this deal the lakers have four if I were writing this I would put parentheses and the number four next to that players under contract right now the new big three of Westbrook James and Anthony Davis.

Westbrook actually makes the most money of any of those players and then they have Marcus all who I guess is coming back we'll see we'll see about that.

There's speculation that maybe that would never be as an announces retirement or anything so I mean maybe he comes back to their starting center and if they wanted to they could still have

some McKinney's non guarantee but I imagine that's he's not someone that they expect to play for him and then you've got the free agency of Taylor Horton Tucker and Alex Caruso Markey for us they'll have early bird rights on Andre

and they don't have any type of rights on at all and so basically in terms of team building they are limited to minimums and the mini mid level because they are very hard price there's basically no way that they would be able to get under the apron if they used more of the mid level even just filling out their roster with the needed 10 players is going to eat up your 14 million in room below the apron so they and that also eliminates any real

plastic sign and trade possibilities as well and of course I think they would be they're going to want to bring back Caruso and Horton Tucker also but I mean what is this Lakers team going to look like

yeah and we talked about it before a little bit right of just the spacing may not be great but they still have a bunch of roster spots to spill fill out and they're going to do their magic with some minimums here.

So last off season I heavily criticized Rob Plinken the Lakers from office for not embracing the understanding that the Lakers best lineups were always assuming you built the roster correctly going to have Anthony Davis at the five and we'll

bring on James at the 4 and there are a lot of different things an prioritize a lot of different things that you can add and that whether that was

you know, ran into the problems that actually ended up happening. And Russell Westbrook is in some ways in many ways a

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