Thoughs on the McKie and Divac signings

A series of post in this thread on LakersGround.net on 8/16/07.

I support Mitch as much as anyone on this board, but the McKie signing wasn't a decent signing. It was a waste, and though it didn't hurt the Lakers, it didn't help them. McKie's minutes had fallen dramatically the season before (28.2 to 16.4) and his per 40 minute scoring also had fallen (13.0 to 5.4). Many posters said that he was done before the Lakers signed him and they were right. I think the Lakers were in the no man's land of really needing a veteran PG but not wanting to sign someone to a contract longer than 2 years because of the 2007 plan, so they signed him out of hope, not realism. They wasted $5M of Buss' money for essentially an assistant coach.

OTOH, I always thought the Divac signing was a good one ruined by an unexpected back injury. Here is what Divac did in the 5 prior years:
82 games, 29.0 mpg, 12.3 ppg, 8.0 rpg
81 games, 29.9 mpg, 12.0 ppg, 8.3 rpg
80 games, 30.3 mpg, 11.1 ppg, 8.4 rpg
80 games, 29.8 mpg, 9.9 ppg, 7.2 rpg
81 games, 28.6 mpg, 9.9 ppg, 5.7 rpg
What I read of the injury was that in training camp, Divas was feeling really good and playing well, so he tried a move that he shouldn't have and screwed up his back.
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Hector the Pup wrote:
Which never happens with senior citizens, right?

Centers can play for a long time in the NBA. Mutombo is ancient, but played in 75 games last year, averaging 17.2 mpg. Willis, Ewing and Parish all played as decent reserves until they were at least 40. I didn't see any reason why Divac couldn't have provided some good minutes when he was 36 and 37.