Los Angeles Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak discards all rumours and drafts 4 players: NBA Update
Two days before the draft, there was a lot of buzz in the league regarding the trade rumours that involved three key Los Angeles Lakers players and as per the reports, the Lakers were looking to shake their roster by making some
last minute deals.
However, on the draft day the General Manager of the Los Angeles Lakers Mitch Kupchak finally broke the silence code and discarded all the trade rumours that were swirling in the league regarding Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. Kupchak
also made it clear that the Lakers are not giving away Lamar Odom to any franchise.
Answering the deals question Kupchak didn’t spare anyone and brusquely said, "I think other teams have been exploring major moves with us. I'm not exactly sure where it all came from, but prior to our exit in the playoffs a prominent
member of the media suggested that we 'blow up' our team.
"I think that created an avalanche of expectations with other teams that we were looking to do things and I think we've been pretty consistent over the last month or so that it's not our goal right now to look to break up this
team. Certainly we'll explore opportunities but we're not up there dialing 27, 28 teams and saying, 'What would you do for these players?' That's not what we're doing."
The long time GM was referring to the statement made by Magic Johnson, who disparaged the Lakers because of their lacklustre performance on a sports channel and said the Lakers require fresh players, before game-4 between the Lakers
and the Dallas Mavericks.
Kupchak also blamed player agents, who were portraying their clients’ agendas through media. The fuming GM told that agents have found a new way to make the deals by giving their own suggestions, which they believe will benefit
them. Mitch said projection of agendas through agents is increasing with the time and its causing a lot of problems.
However this all doesn’t mean that the Lakers or Kupchak are not excited about the Thursday’s draft and they wouldn’t utilize their picks. The Lakers got two first-round picks (41 and 46) and two first second round picks (56 and
58) in this year’s draft and with these numbers the Lakers were looking to fortify their defensive unit.
Since there is a high possibility that Shannon Brown might not sign one year contract extension with the Lakers, Kupchak and company remained glued to their plan and drafted Michigan’s point guard Darius Morris at 41 and College
of Charleston’s Andrew Goudelock with 46, who is also a guard.
From the second round the Lakers picked Nigerian forward Chukwudiebere Maduabum at 56, who had played in the D-League. For the 58th pick the Lakers drafted a young centre from Sudan Ater Majok, who has played basketball
in Australia.
Out of these four picks the Lakers moved Maduabum to the Denver Nuggets and in return received a second round pick in the future draft. The Lakers are thrilled to have these players and will look to groom them in order to develop
some new players.
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