FILAM FINANCE

Mitch Kupchak and the rest of the Lakers front office deserve all the negative remarks and criticism for trading Shaq in 2004 and not drafting a lot of good players before 2005.

Now, they deserve most of the accolades for all the recent acquisitions from draft picks and trades. Drafting players like Andrew Bynum, Ronnie Turiaf and Jordan Farmar and trading for Trevor Ariza and Pau Gasol.

Now forgotten were how the Lakers drafted Brian Cook when Leandro Barbosa and Josh Howard were still on the board, how the Lakers missed out on Carlos Boozer, Tony Parker and Gilbert arenas when they were still available in the draft, and how the team did not trade Bynum for either Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal, or Jason Kidd.

Now going back to the Shaq trade, we can all say now that it is not a bad move after all.

What did we really get for trading the aging and declining Shaq?
A young core of arguably the best frontline in the western conference for the next few years: Andrew Bynum (7-0) at center, Pau Gasol (7-0) at power forward, and Lamar Odom (6-10) at the small forward spot. Their ages are 20, 27, and 28 years old respectively.

How did this happen?

Here are the series of events!

Acquiring Lamar Odom
We all know how he got here, he is one of the players, along with Brian Grant and Caron Butler, traded to the Lakers for Shaq. Not that I am really excited with Lamar, but he still a match up problem for most teams. He might not contribute offensively as much as he would but he can sure guard positions 3,4 and 5. Although, in my opinion, he is way overpaid ($13,000,000 this year) for being a role player.
A closer look at Odom’s stat:

Drafting Andrew Bynum
Remember what happened to the San Antonio Spurs in 1996-1997? Although they did not trade David Robinson, he was out because of injuries for most of the season and resulted in a team going to the lottery and a no. 1 overall pick in Tim Duncan.
With Shaq no longer with the team, the Lakers fell into the lottery and ended up drafting Andrew Bynum with the 10th pick in 2005.
I’m not saying that Andrew Bynum is playing at Duncan’s level right now, but Bynum sure showed a lot of his potential this season and he is only 20 years of age. And when he gains more experience and knowledge of the game (remember he just played 3 years of organized basketball before he got drafted), he will be a dominant player in the paint.

Trading for Pau Gasol
Well, Gasol’s acquisition is also an indirect result of the Shaq trade. The Lakers shipped out Shaq to Miami for Caron Butler, who was then shipped to Washington a year later for Kwame Brown, who was then shipped to Memphis for Pau Gasol. While the Washington Wizards’ fans are celebrating because they have acquired an all-star player in Butler and the Lakers fans grimacing because of Brown’s ineffective play and thought that the trade was a mistake , it should be noted that without Brown’s expiring contract, the Lakers would have not gotten Pau Gasol. So trading Butler for Kwame Brown turns out to be a great move by the Lakers.

A closer look at Gasol’s stat this season:

Gasol is making almost the same money at $13,735,000 as Odom this year.

We still don’t know if they can win it all this season or how the team’s chemistry will be affected. But it seems that Pau Gasol is a very good fit for the Lakers because of his high basketball IQ, his passing ability, and his scoring ability around the basket making other teams defend the Lakers honestly. Kobe Bryant will sure require a double team but opposing teams will have a hard time doing that because of the presence of Andrew Bynum, who is shooting at a 63% field goal, the highest in the NBA this season, and Gasol who can create his own shot and has very good low post moves.

So good times are back in Laker land and let’s all enjoy the moment!!

Image Credit: Kupchak (TopBuzz), Shaq (AP Photo: Lynne Sladky, Odom (topbuzz), Bynum(Top Buzz),Pau Gasol (Deportesadictos.com).

Stat Source: ESPN.com and NBA.com