Once the word leaked this was a possibility, maybe we should have known this was always coming. We really should have known when it was reported this was getting closer. It turns out, today is that day. If you didn’t read the title of this post and have no clue what I’m talking about, the Lakers will (reportedly) sign Metta World Peace:
Metta World Peace will sign a one-year deal today to return to the Los Angeles Lakers, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 24, 2015
As simple as it would seem a deal like this would be, nothing is ever really like that, is it? At his pre-training camp press conference, Mitch Kupchak spoke today about the positive influence he believes Metta can have on the lockerroom, in helping to mentor young players, and in passing down knowledge from his decade-plus career as an impact (and elite) defender. Noting that, while observing him in scrimmages and pick-up game sessions, MWP could still play is also meaningful.
When it’s all said and done and the Lakers provide official comment on the reported signing, I’ve no doubt this is what will be mentioned. Metta has already been working closely with Julius Randle and, if for no other reason, the former can help the latter reach his substantial potential a deal like this makes sense.
Again, though, nothing is really that simple. The Lakers, already have several veteran players in place to help aid in the development of their young players. They are also facing a bit of a crunch on the back-end of the roster, looking for the most productive players they can have in spots 12 through 15. A rebuilding team like the Lakers needs all the talent they can get and Kupchak even noted he would be open to waiving a player on a guaranteed contract if it meant keeping a player on a non-guaranteed deal who was outplaying him.
Where Ron fits into this equation, then, is a question with a murky answer. Leadership and mentoring and the ability to be a spot player is valuable. When you have a team of young, impressionable players who are looking to take positive steps forward, the influence strong veterans can have on their careers can be meaningful. The flip side is whether that value exceeds that of what a young player who has his entire career in front of him has to offer.
There are no good answers here. There are simply too many unknowns to properly gauge the total impact one way or another. It’s also key to note, of course, that Metta has not even made the team yet (though, if I was to guess, I’d say he probably does). We also don’t yet even know the terms of his reported 1-year deal.
One thing we do know, though, is that Metta is a Laker again. Like several other players battling for a roster spot, he will get the chance to prove his worth in training camp, competing against the guys who want the same job he does. We also know competition has seemed to bring the fire out of MWP as much as anything else. And for that, if no other reason, I am anxious to see how this goes.
For however long, then, welcome back Ron. Ron? RON.
Mr. Clutch says
Metta could provide all that leadership and mentoring as an ass’t coach without clogging the roster.
Darius Soriano says
Mr. Clutch,
This is an idea that keeps coming up, but I don’t necessarily agree with that. Coaches don’t practice with the team, they don’t occupy the same space on the team bus or plane. They are, also, naturally separated from the players in that they are “the bosses”. Regardless of how cool your coach is or how close you get to them, the messages delivered from them will always be received a bit differently than the ones given by a fellow player.
I’m not saying Ron wouldn’t have value as a coach. But I am saying there is likely to be a different perception of him/how he is received should he make the team as a player.
Anthony says
If metta makes the team this will cement the utter failure that has been mitch kupchak and jim buss’ tenure in the front office. Sacrificing a valuable roster spot for an average at best player in his mid thirties would be the epitome of stupidity. Really hope mitch is smarter than that.
Anon says
Anyone know how much this will cost? Like anything else, may make sense at the right price.
Paula Cavy says
Thank you Mitch and Jim, Metta will help the Lakers alot. I know he will and I am sure Kobe is liking this move too.
Laker uruguayo says
Creo que es una buena noticia. Para analizar opciones, deberíamos saber cuáles son los objetivos.
¿Es una posibilidad real traer a Kevin Durant el próximo año? MWP es el SF esta temporada, y el puesto queda libre y, mientras tanto, es un buen aliado de Kobe y un espejo para Randle, Holmes y A. Brown.
¿Había otras opciones?
Algunos corresponsales manejaron la idea de ir por Bennett. Demostró poco en Cleveland, en Minnesota y en la selección canadiense, además de ser más PF que SF.
¿Ir a la puja por Harrison Barnes? Buen jugador, sólido en defensa, ética de trabajo estilo Kobe. Apuesta cara y riesgosa -siempre puede GSW igualar la oferta y quedarnos sin nada-, sobre todo porque no es fácil irse del equipo campeón. Y si pagar mucho por una buena promesa fuera la apuesta de los Lakers, no habrían dejado pasar a Tobias Harris.
MWP ayuda a llenar un hueco en el plantel. Todos sabemos, al margen de que se hagan o no, que los recortes pasan por otros nombres.
pat oslon says
Julius Randle and the young guns will benefit immensely!
Anon says
Amigo Charrua-a mí me parece que Bennet es una buena opción y el hecho que hayan traído a MWP me da el presentimiento que lo están haciendo con el objetivo de que también ayude a Bennet
Mid-Wilshire says
A mi, no me parece que Los Lakers tienen interes en Bennet. No tienen lugar en este equipo para un jugador mas. No quiero oir nada mas de Bennet. No es relevante. Ya tenemos Metta.
I see this as a positive move, potentially. For one thing, if MWP makes the team, and I believe he will, then that will force their hand with respect to some marginal contributors such as Ryan Kelly and/or Robert Sacre. I mean, something’s gotta give. If I were a betting man, I would say that Kelly’s day’s are absolutely numbered.
So…if MWP makes the team, what role, if any, will Nick Young play? I would think that Young could be on the verge of becoming an end of the bench guy. They already have Lou Williams. They don’t need another gunner. I see little room for Nick on this team if MWP makes his presence felt.
This will also toughen the team’s perimeter defense. And MWP’s presence will definitely inculcate the principles of solid defense into the younger players. The practices will be tougher. There’ll be a few more elbows thrown. And there’ll be more in-your-face challenges. MWP doesn’t take plays off. And the young guys will notice.
I see this as being a positive move all the way.
J C says
Mid Wilshire has it right.
Practices that include Metta as a player–not as a coach–will be far more competitive. That benefits everyone.
And the team Defense will operate on a different plane as well.
I assume he makes the team and if that means no more Sacre or Kelly — all the better.
lil pau says
I haven’t seen this link posted elsewhere…. but the brilliant, thorny, cerebral, dicky hero of my youth, the underrated anti-Magic and unheralded MJ-surpassing GOAT Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is profiled in this week’s NY Times magazine. He’s written a novel (of all things) about Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older brother.
Why not? He can do anything. Easier than a skyhook, right? He’s Kareem, damn it. Recognize.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/magazine/what-the-world-got-wrong-about-kareem-abdul-jabbar.html?WT.mc_id=2015-SEPTEMBER-OUTBRAIN-EMAILED_AUD_DEV-0901-0930&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK&_r=0
And welcome back MWP! Will Hawaii ever be the same?
IG: jwoodz313 says
I LOVE this signing! He will be a huge factor in the locker room and on the court. With this team, I could see a playoff contending season..
PG: Russell(r), Williams, Huertas(r)
SG: Clarkson, Young, Frazier(r)
SF: Kobe, MWP, Brown(r)
PF: Randle, Bass, Nance Jr(r)
C: Hibbert, Black, Upshaw(r)
I love Jonathon Holmes’ game but he would be the odd man out. However, assigning Holmes to the Defenders would keep him within our reach. This way, we are three deep at every position. With a mix of vets and young guns at every position, with guys who can also play multiple positions. With a better coach, this group could sniff 50 wins. But we all know B. Scott ain’t going nowhere this year lol
Mansa says
Seems quite a few of you are down on this pick up even going as far as saying he should be a coach. Guys like this are invaluable on a young team. Who are you all mad about him taking a spot from? Are core young guys are there and we desperately need veteran players to balance it all out. Metta is perfect. Seriously, imagine how much it will help Randle going against him in practice every day. I love the pick up and I am one of the people who actually thinks this team has a real shot at the playoffs. But we’ll see, I don’t have a problem with it at all.
Renato Afonso says
Dudes, I don’t think that posting in spanish is cool. You have a lot of people from different countries here and some of them don’t speak your language but none of them posts in their own language. While I do speak spanish, I prefer not to go through those comments to get the english commentary. I’m sorry about that but I think it’s just rude to the non-spanish speaking people here.
LKK says
I think a side benefit of this signing is that Metta will go hard at Kobe and sort of de-mistify the Mamba in the eyes of the young guys. The young guys can’t be in awe of Kobe if this team is to make progress. And it doesn’t hurt that MWP is a few eggs short of a dozen. Every team needs some toughness.
Laker uruguayo says
Estimado Renato, no se trata de ser genial o cool. Cada uno se expresa como puede, yo siento que si traduzco al inglés mis pensamientos, corro el riesgo de cometer errores ortográficos que desvirtúen mi idea original. Por suerte hay herramientas tecnológicas que nos permiten superar estas barreras. ¿Qué es lo esencial, el concepto o el idioma? Espero que mis conceptos sobre los Lakers aporten algo más que una discusión sobre la forma.
Lurker's Compensation says
Re: translation de Espanol
Renato Afonso, for non-Spanish speakers, or guys with lousy Spanish like me, there is Google Translate:
https://translate.google.com/?hl=&ie=UTF-8&text=ye&sl=es&tl=en#es|en|
If it’s only an occasional posting here in Spanish, I don’t see the problem. Sites like Twitter have a lot of posts in Spanish. For those who don’t speak the language, just scrolling past things you’re not interested in (for whatever reason) is always an option.
bleedpurplegold says
While i dont think we will even sniff the playoffs, i also like this singing. As i have noted when this came up first, i think metta could show our youngsters a few tricks on D, like recovering when beaten off the dribble, an art he has mastered. This could be very valuble to guys like d’angelo, who aint the fastest guy out there but has to go up against players like westbrook or rose. I also like what LKK said about demistyfing the aura of the mamba. This could also be usefull when our guys go up against the likes of durant or lebron, as it shows that noone is really unguardable.
Like the way our D shapes up, hibbert as our anker, kobe and metta will at least bring the intensity at all times, young athletic guys like clarkson or randle…great mix
It seems to me that says
the posts in Spanish add value and diversity.
As a native English speaker and fairly recent student of Spanish, I can read Spanish well enough to understand the posts here, for the most part, and I too appreciate the practice, as another person here recently opined.
For those that need a translation, a great site for that is actually http://www.spanishdict.com/ , which provides three different versions of the translation, allowing you to better piece together what is actually being communicated. It also works both ways, so Laker uruguayo and other Spanish-speaking readers can use it to translate English into Spanish to get three slightly different translations that will, taken together, yield greater clarity. It is simply superior to Google Translate, which is far more error-prone.
The verb entries are also pretty useful for students, as they show all (and I mean all) of the conjugations, as in the case of tratar: http://www.spanishdict.com/conjugate/tratar .
Renato Afonso says
Tudo bem. Como agora podemos contar com correctores online eu vou passar a escrever na minha língua materna. Acho que a tradução de malaio quando o Warren escrever vai ser mais complicada mas, ainda assim, vale a pena.
Relativamente ao assunto do Metta World Peace, creio que apesar de ser uma boa adição na perspectiva da sua experiência, a realidade é que há três anos ele já estava ultrapassado e bem que sentimos a falta de alguém com capacidade na posição dele. No entanto, ainda acho que o Kobe vai jogar a 3 este ano e por isso não me parece que hajam minutos disponíveis para ele.
Mid-Wilshire says
Renato,
It’s always good to hear from you. You’re my favorite poster. But I’ll have to disagree with you on the Spanish issue (unless I’m over-ruled by Darius; after all, it’s his site).
To begin with, I wasn’t attempting to offend anyone or be un-cool by offering a brief paragraph in Spanish recently. (I’m an American of Mexican descent and was born and raised in Tucson. So, the Spanish comes naturally. Somewhat ironically, I have an English Lit degree from the University of Michigan.) I was simply responding to Anon who in turn was responding to Laker Uruguayo. That entire exchange was en espanol. (Unfortunately, my keyboard doesn’t have accents or tildes.) But I wasn’t attempting to leave anyone out. That was not my intent.
By the way, I simply said — Let’s forget this talk of Anthony Bennett. We have Metta now. A full house. There’s no room for anyone else. Let’s move on (in effect).
Laker Uruguayo, when he first offered a commentary, explained his use of Spanish (which I attempted to translate) by explaining that his Spanish is simply much stronger than his English and, as a result, he prefers to trust his ideas to the Spanish Language. That seems perfectly OK. Considering that his knowledge of the game is obviously pretty extensive (he certainly know the NBA and the game of basketball) and his insights are often excellent, several of us encouraged him to continue posting — en Espanol.
As Lurker said above, there is a Google tool that makes translations very easy. And, of course, if one doesn’t want to bother, one can always scroll past.
A couple of other points: I think an occasional Spanish-language post is great because it creates a sense of inclusion. Laker Uruguayo mentioned in his first post that there are many Latinos who follow FB&G. It would be a shame to lose or stifle them.
Furthermore, if you look at the Lakers’ own official web site at NBA.com, you will notice that it is, in effect, in bi-lingual format. There are English-language articles and there’s Lakers en Espanol. Actually, I often find the Spanish-language articles of greater interest. Right now, they’re focusing on the various positions and the internal battles going on at each one. So far they’ve covered the 2 guard positions. The insights are pretty good. The web site offers automatic translations if you need that.
Finally, this is, as I said, Darius’s site. He calls the shots. He puts in all the work to keep it the best web site in basketball (and it is). If he says, it’s English-only, so be it. But so far, I haven’t heard that. And so far, the Spanish is very occasional. I personally see no harm in that.
Mid-Wilshire says
Renato,
I love your Portuguese. It’s very beautiful. So melodic. It’s a language that I’d love to learn one day. Maybe I will.
Ed says
Going to be quite a battle in training camp and pre-season games for the final roster spots. Usually these get sorted out by injuries and trades,and last resort,eating salary. Does MWP make the team, hard to say right now. If not,maybe his decision to play again in China,or accept much less to coach with Lakers.
Ed says
I heard many years ago that Portuguese could understand Spanish,but not visa versa. Is this true?
Anonymous says
*
T. Rogers says
I have to cosign Spanishdict. It is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their Spanish.
Laker uruguayo says
Estimados compañeros: Tengo 50 años, vivo en Uruguay, y hace más de 30 que me intereso por los Lakers. Cuando no había acceso a Internet ni tv por cable, yo buscaba en los diarios cualquier noticia acerca del equipo de Magic Johnson. Eran épocas de campeonatos y de showtime, lo que ayudaba a que alguna noticia apareciera.
La tecnología fue llegando, y con ella la posibilidad de ver algunos partidos y muchas noticias.
Un día apareció un grandote que hacía un aviso de un refresco cola, y poco tiempo después ficha por mi equipo. El nombre era extraño, pero era fácil llamarlo Shaq. A él se le sumó un novato -también de nombre extraño- que, con el tiempo, se iba a convertir en mi imagen de los Lakers. Shaq, Kobe y Phil Jackson me regalaron los tres primeros campeonatos de los Lakers que pude realmente disfrutar.
Desde hace años, veo todos los partidos. Es bueno señalar que, debido al horario de verano en mi país, cuando los Lakers son locales suelen mantenerme despierto hasta las 4 am. En enero estoy de vacaciones, en el resto del año me levanto a las 7 para ir a trabajar. Voy con sueño, pero feliz porque pude ver a mi equipo. No sé si en mi país hay alguien más que haga esto por su amor a los Lakers.
Leyendo y releyendo sitios sobre los Lakers, llegué a forum blue and gold. Leí a Darius Soriano, me gustó su criterio, y seguí su página.
Un día, entendí que podía aportar mis pensamientos, y escribí en inglés. Pero tengo limitaciones con el manejo del idioma, y vi que los conceptos perdían la profundidad y la riqueza que figuraban en mis hispanos pensamientos.
Cuando vi que mis comentarios en español eran aceptados, traducidos y hasta valorados, me animé a seguir. Vivimos en un mundo conectado, y escribo en un idioma que es el segundo más hablado en Estados Unidos.
Tal vez Renato tenga razón en su reclamo, tal vez no. Es obvio que si cada uno escribe como le parece, quizás algún día dejemos de entendernos, y no quiero ser el responsable de atentar, aunque sea sin querer, contra este sitio. También es cierto que mi hispana opinión fue bien aceptada, y que tal vez ayude a integrar a este lugar a muchos otros que aún no se sienten integrados. Los Lakers son tan grandes que trascienden al país donde juegan.
Entiendo que lo mejor es que deje de escribir. Cuando lo hago en inglés pierdo contenido, no quiero pasarlo por un traductor que desvirtúe la gramática. Quien lo ha hecho compartirá conmigo que “Lakers fan” no es un “ventilador de los Lakers”.
Gracias a todos por hacerme sentir parte del forum blue and gold desde tan lejos. Eso es lo importante, sentir que compartimos la pasión de ser seguidores de los Lakers.
Hasta siempre.
Michael says
The Front Office let coach Nash slip through their fingers and into the lap of Golden State. Why is that? Signing Metta is a plus. True, there is lots of potentially good, young talent to develop. Possibly Summer League made the F.O. weary of having a weak bench. Brown, Upshaw and Nance were inconsistent. We all know Metta cares about the organization. His heart is covered in purple and gold. He will be a prime contributor on a few levels.
Chearn says
I prefer MWP, over players with minimum mental fortitude, laissez-faire work ethics, tweeners lacking a positional slot in the NBA, less than stellar athleticism, or unproven players with one skill set. The Lakers have drafted players in this mode for years consuming organizational assets and yielding nothing more than development for overseas teams. Recall, Ebanks, Goudelock, Mbenga, Caracter, Darius, Yue, and Crittendon. I dare say that MWP even at this stage of his career has infinitely more to offer the team than players of this ilk.
If Mitch thought MWPs intention was corrupting the moral makeup of Randle, I doubt that MWP would be welcomed in the Lakers facility.
Kobe and MWP are bastions of Lakers championship teams. Bass, Williams, and Hibbert have only peripheral knowledge of what constitutes a Larry O’Brien winner. Those two Lakers holdovers are foundational to the young Colts advancing their NBA learning curve. The game is not merely about them developing their jump shots, finishing at the rim or shortening their dribble to get around an opponent on a drive to the rim for a finish or a pass. They have to learn how to counter scouting reports on their tendencies, trash talking, breaks down game tape and play through physical contact, etc.
If Kobe and MWP aren’t on the team, the Lakers winning trajectory might be similar to the Warriors, Trailblazers, and Seattle Sonics (OKC Thunder). In other words, look for a 4-5 year timeline.