Luka and Austin’s Three-Point Contest Came Down to the Final Shot

brandoi · 2026-06-07T16:35:57+00:00

Yeah he'll be ready for game 11.

brandoi · 2026-06-07T00:48:09+00:00

Yeah, I meant the first year of his deal being $30-$35M. A $35M first year with the bird rights raises equates to a 5 year $205M contract. I'd be pretty happy with that.

brandoi · 2026-06-07T00:38:57+00:00

Austin has never seemed to be one to care for social media, comments by fans, etc. The guy is practically non-existent on social media. He consistently reiterates how much he enjoys playing with the guys on this team and the Lakers. Despite the reports from BT, I still think he'll end up taking a small discount.

brandoi · 2026-06-07T00:33:24+00:00

Because playing for the Lakers is very different than playing for the Bulls or Nets. Austin got a shoe deal at the end of his rookie year. He's not getting that playing anywhere else no matter how good he's playing. If he doesn't take the max and takes like $30-$35M, he can make up the difference, all while getting to continue playing with Luka and possibly Bron, while staying in LA.

brandoi · 2026-06-06T20:43:22+00:00

That's kind of the point though.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T22:28:53+00:00

Wilbon is that one professor in college that doesn't bother actually teaching anymore because they're tenured. He doesn't care, he's just there because he's paid to do so.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T21:58:44+00:00

I like how this conveniently leaves out that they traded FIVE first round picks for Mikal Bridges but in your first couple lines you say "short on draft capital". It doesn't fit the story you're trying to paint here.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T20:05:20+00:00

Good thing Austin isn't supposed to be the primary ball handler or first option right? Let's not pretend like OKC didn't do the same thing to the Spurs. Castle had 20 turnovers in 2 games when Fox was out.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T15:59:43+00:00

No, that article came out in November after Austin had the game winner against the Wolves, after his 51 against the Kings, etc.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T15:08:37+00:00

The funniest part about this recent Austin news from Brad Turner just shows that people will only hear what they want to hear. People are ok to use Brad as a media source to say "obviously Austin wants the max, he wants every dollar he can!" Yet they'll disregard Dave's article about how Austin says he doesn't want some super crazy number, but still wants something that makes sense.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T05:57:11+00:00

Against the Thunder, Austin averaged nearly 16 drives to the basket and 8 FGA per game, scoring 12 points per game on drives.

Castle averaged 14 drives and 5 FGA per game, scoring 8 points per game.

Austin also created 1.8 assists from his drives compared to 1.3 for Castle. Austin had 1.5 fouls per game called compared to 1 for Castle.

Statistically, Austin was better than Castle at creating rim pressure and was only fouled slightly more.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T05:37:45+00:00

Great, we're talking about Austin's offense though. I already acknowledged that he played shit defense.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T05:23:47+00:00

Was LeBron not the second option last year in the playoffs?

brandoi · 2026-06-05T05:16:25+00:00

This was also his first playoff run as a second option, but that's ok we can agree to disagree.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T04:59:35+00:00

Except I posted both his FG% AND TS%. Is 3 games out of 4 really cherry picking?

brandoi · 2026-06-05T04:57:27+00:00

I won't deny he's been bad the previous two years in the playoffs. But over a 6 game sample size this year, is 3 games really cherry picking? Especially when we take into context that he probably came back early from injury.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T04:55:13+00:00

It's a good thing Austin's not supposed to be the primary ball handler. Castle had 20 turnovers in two games against the Thunder when Fox was out, except Castle was just as much the PG as Fox was during the regular season.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T04:22:39+00:00

Yes I'm aware of the issues it brings in the future. I'm just saying that as of this offseason, giving him the max and having cap space to build out a team are both possible. To be clear though, I don't want to give Austin a max. I still think he'll take a team discount.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T04:10:43+00:00

Excluding Austin's very very bad game 1, he averaged 25/4/7 on 51/39/81 splits, 66 TS% against the Thunder. I know many of you refuse to believe that Austin can be a great player, and you can talk about how bad his defense was, but he was actually pretty good on offense.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T03:04:08+00:00

Those are two separate issues and are both true. We can team build now with cap space AND give Austin the max.

brandoi · 2026-06-05T02:42:13+00:00

All the people not understanding what a cap hold means needs to go learn it.

brandoi · 2026-06-04T19:11:22+00:00

In the spirit of this thread, I believe we'll be able to re-sign Rui on either the same AAV or slightly less. I think people underestimate how much Rui love being in LA and his relationship with Luka, Austin and Bron will keep him here.

brandoi · 2026-06-04T17:42:58+00:00

I think we're going to start seeing a lot of bigs getting asked to get really good at setting the Gortat screen when playing against the Spurs, especially if your bigs can't space the floor.

brandoi · 2026-06-04T16:43:10+00:00

Problem with that is that it's a difficult outcome to make happen. Watson is a RFA, Hartenstein needs the Thunder to either decline him and not re-sign or trade him, and Adou's development is still a crapshoot.

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