The NBA regular season showdown is still in full swing, there are many dark horse teams this season, and traditional teams with old-school superstars want to hit the championship, which is undoubtedly more difficult, like the Golden State Warriors, who were still NBA champions two years ago, but this season has been sluggish, and the current winning rate is less than fifty percent. The Suns led by Durant and the Lakers led by James have a winning rate of just over 5%. The Lakers have had a strange season, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, as they can win the mid-season tournament, beat some of the league's top teams, or lose to the Fish Belly in quick succession, and remain in the middle and lower reaches of the West. You can't figure out how strong the Lakers really are, last season's Lakers climbed all the way from the bottom of the West to get a playoff ticket.
The Lakers in the playoffs counterattacked all the way to the Western Finals, which is already a good result. And last offseason, the Lakers overhauled their roster, they wanted to make further breakthroughs, learned the lesson of being swept by the Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, the Lakers sent away a large number of guard players, and signed a variety of forward lines to make up for the size of the roster and strengthen the team's defense. However, it seems that the Lakers are a little too much of a hoarding of forward resources, and this season they are starting to lack players who can play, lack role players who have the ability to shoot and launch their own offense, and there is no shortage of such players among the guards they have sent away. This season, the Lakers sent away Lonnie Walker and Beasley, whose three-point shooting percentage after coming to the new team, all set career highs, including Schroder, who also played well in the Raptors after leaving the Lakers.
Speaking of Schroder, the guard, he was already a second-time Laker last season, and as early as the 20-21 season, he joined the Lakers for the first time as the Lakers' starting point guard. At that time, the Lakers, as the defending champion, were full of ambition and had very high requirements for new signings, and Schroder did not play the desired effect, his average data per game that season was 15.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 5.8 assists, and his organizational skills were average, mainly because the offensive efficiency was too low, and the Lakers hoped that Schroder could take on the role of a three-point shooter, after all, during the 19-20 season of the Thunder, Schroder's three-point shooting rate reached 38.5%, and after joining the Lakers, his outside shooting rate plummeted by 5 percentage points, only 33.5%. However, Schroeder at that time, after all, was holding the title of the best sixth man candidate.
Lakers management also believes that he can run in perfectly with the team in the later stage, on the other hand, the Lakers are really short of point guards, and as soon as Rondo leaves, they need an organizational point to share the pressure of leading the team for James, assuming that without Schroder, they may not be able to find a player with such attributes in the future. In the middle of the 20-21 season, both the Lakers and Schroder made decisions that surprised fans. First of all, the Lakers offered Schroder a four-year contract with a maximum salary of $84 million, and judging from his performance at the time, it was worth about $18 million for one year at most, and the Lakers offered him more than $20 million a year and a four-year long-term contract. What's even more surprising is that Schroder also refused, which directly angered the Lakers management, and Schroder himself later performed averagely, and he was directly cut in the playoffs.
So, in the offseason before the 21-22 season, Schroder was faced with a situation where no one cared about him, and all teams believed that Schroder had the ability, but he was too ambitious to give him the price he wanted. In the end, the Celtics took pity on him and offered Schroder a one-year, $5.9 million base salary contract, allowing him to play again. From $84 million to a base salary of $5.9 million a year! At that time, Schroder was also laughed at by everyone, rejecting the Lakers 84 million, a little self-inflicted, and later Schroder did not admit it, and the Lakers offered him this and a big contract: "We have had a contract renewal conversation, but I have never gotten such an offer." They never offered me this contract, money is not everything. ”
Schroder lied, and now, two years later, he admits that the Lakers did give him such a big contract, but his agent advised him to refuse: "That's really $84 million, I'll sign it, I won't leave any money on the table, my mom didn't educate me like that, but my agent told me to say no, and he said I could be worth a bigger contract." "For Schröder, he is lucky, he is also a very hard player, in the World Cup last summer, Schroeder led the German men's basketball team to win the championship, which also gave him the opportunity to regain his value. Last offseason, the Toronto Raptors offered Schroder a two-year, $25 million contract, much better than his previous one-year salary, but Schroder could no longer get such a big contract as $84 million, and it was difficult for him to compete for a championship after leaving James.