By: Opinionated MJ

Today I had a hunch after seeing that the Roy Hibbert trade was made official. Take careful note of what I’m saying here, remember where you heard it first. July 10th, 2015 at 11:31pm Eastern Time as I write this. Ha! The Lakers only gave up a 2nd round pick while also getting Roy Hibbert to agree to waiving his trade kicker which leaves the Lakers with money. I also paid special attention to the Lou Williams signing, the Brandon Bass signing, the Larry Nance sighting (yeah I watched the Lakers 5 on 5) and the fact that the Lakers still have Nick Young. I thought about the Sacramento Kings and wondered why do they have so many centers on their roster. Cousins, Cauley-Stein, Arturas Gudaitis, Kosta Koufos, and they are also entertaining the idea of Sim Bhullar. Karl also likes Javale McGee. 5 centers to be exact. This also stemmed from a conversation I had with a friend about the George Karl, DeMarcus Cousins, Rajon Rondo triangle. Knowing that Rondo & Cousins will either get along very well or won’t get along at all. Rondo will probably get along with Karl because Karl likes point guards. Then again, Rondo’s attitude may also prove to be problematic for him too. Which leaves me wondering why would they build a nuclear bomb to only shoot it directly up and target it to fall directly where it came from.

This is going to blow up. I don’t see it any other way. I don’t see DeMarcus actually trying to be buddies with George Karl after what happened. It’s quiet now. I believe that quiet is only attributed to the learning process the new front office is going through. Vlade Divac doesn’t see eye to eye with Karl on this matter. Excuse me Jalen, Bill, but Boogie doesn’t trust the Kings as an organization. So with all of this pretty much up in the air, there’s only one solution: See what this team can do from opening day through the trade deadline and make a move for the future of the franchise. By then they will know whether they are retaining Rondo. They will know whether Karl will have truly been right or wrong, and I believe they want to fire him BUT they don’t and they won’t. How would it look to hire a coach and not get anything out of him? They’re going to get their money’s worth. Rondo is on a 1 year deal. You have a lot of new faces at the center position incoming and this could ultimately spell the end of the Cousins Era in Sacramento.

Here’s where it gets tricky. What would you expect in return for your center? A center to replace him right? Well exactly. Enter, again, the Los Angeles Lakers. They’ve shored up their 4 position for ultimate decision: trading Randle. Adding Bass, Williams, drafting Nance, and keeping Nick Young throughout this time, and in the now-term according to Mitch Kupchak, only sets them up to have the assets to pull this deal off. George Karl honestly wants coachable players, so Rondo is the scapegoat in this one. They may even try to find a way to pit Rondo against Cousins and side with Rondo to find a reason outside of themselves being the blame for trading away Cousins, once they do. This will also be the action speaking pitch to Rondo to stay on board and that they keys to the franchise belong to him, at least throughout this time. The Lakers have the contract to match with Roy Hibbert, the assets to woo them with Nick and Julius and the Kings have the available big men to shuffle around once Cousins is gone, not to mention they’ll end up with Hibbert.

The Lakers are smart, or maybe it’s just me, but lets take a look at what I’ve come across:

This is the trade that I assume will be proposed, give or take a few draft picks, although in the trade machine it doesn’t work because they’re trying to spread the Jason Terry exception across both Nick Young and Julius Randle. Thats where you take another gander here:

We end up having to use every exception the Kings have but why wouldn’t they when Roy Hibbert has an expiring contract along with Rondo’s contract? There’s more than $25 millions soon to come off the books. The trade exceptions they hold is less than half of what they could possibly have free to lure free agents who could end up playing With Rondo & Rudy or taking over altogether. Here were my successes although they were not the complete trade:

and of course this one here:

If you are a GM in the league, what deal do you think the Kings will get that is better than what the Lakers may be willing to give up? There’s maybe only a #1 pick that they could receive from elsewhere that would be potentially better but that could take anywhere from 2-5 years of player development to reach where they want to be: contention. Plus there are rumors that teams do not want to deal with DeMarcus Cousins but the Lakers are NOT one of those teams. They are willing to take the risk. Why not? They took the risk for Dwight Howard and he left as soon as he could while they were practically on their knees begging him to stay.

The Kings have been trash since C-Webb and Company left them and the entire run was over. They have to find a way back to relevance or they wasted their time fighting to keep the team in Sacramento. They will have successfully failed their fanbase. So why not shoot themselves in the arm with a steriod to jumpstart another possible rebuild period by trading Cousins to the Lakers, freeing up cap in the very near future, having veterans on board in Rondo and Rudy, bringing in Hibbert who is a good rim protector and seeking to retain him, and having to only fill in the blanks? No one wants to start from Stage 1 Rebuilding in the Western Conference. You will not have the same luck the Celtics have. This isn’t the “Least-ern” Conference.

Have fun with the ESPN NBA Trade Machine yourself.