2024-25 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

pretty sure phx can't aggregate salaries in trade, so that's one reason. the other is that two years from now, we'll wish we hadn't traded reaves for durant.

sorry, i actually don't love the all-in-on-the-present deals when lebron keeps breaking down. like, what are the odds lebron makes it through four rounds of playoffs at this point? all moves need to be thinking about post-lebron. durant's exit will coincide with lebron's, and it will be soon, imo. don't want to be on the hook for that extension at all. this is why they're being lowballed. it's the right choice.

 

I get not wanting to overpay, but there’s this idea that standing pat is neutral, like it preserves the status quo. That’s not really true. Doing nothing might actually mean getting worse. The West is getting younger, faster, and deeper. Our core is not. So at some point, playing it safe becomes stagnation.

 

eh, i was here a year ago when not cashing in assets for jerami grant was death.

we have luka. let's not screw up two years from now for marginal upgrades. we weren't a rui for collins away from beating minny.

 

See that’s my pushback argument. Kevin Durant allows LeBron to not have to go all out. You satisfy LeBron while at the same time satisfying Luka. That’s my thought. I don’t care what anybody says we need that outside shooting to make teams stop keying in on Luka only way you do that is get Kevin Durant who makes teams have to decide what they are going to do.

one thing Indiana doesn’t have is a Kevin Durant who makes you pay for loading up inside.

Kevin Durant signs the extension with us.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/article/lakers-reportedly-made-trade-offer-042007049.html

 

Rob will be gone inside 2 seasons no matter what he does. You don’t pay 10 bils to have people you didn’t hire to run your state of the arc business model.

 

Please keep Durant away. Trying to get rid of Lebron is hard enough right now.

 

Collins and Rui have similar value. I think you’re underplaying Knecht’s value - he is worth a first at least. So think of it as 2 firsts (Knecht and Rui) for 1-2 first in Collins. If we throw in a swap, and take off protections on the pick they already own, that’s more than enough and I would say in their favour.

As for Kessler, sending a first for him is probably not enough. But Rui, Gabe, Knecht, a first and swaps for Collins and Kessler isn’t far off. If you could convince LeBron and DFS to take less to open up the MLE for a NAW acquisition you’re sorted.

Kessler / Collins
LeBron / Collins
DFS
Reaves / NAW
Luka / NAW

That’s still only a 7 man rotation come playoffs, you hope Goodwin, Vando or a vet min makes up the 8th.

 

Very good news, now the rest of the league can proceed and he can stop holding up the show.

Entering the weekend momentum was pointing towards Miami. Curious to see what the destination is

 

I do agree that Knecht is being undervalued by the fans. I get that he was an older rookie but he was still a rookie and I don’t buy the argument that he can’t get better in the areas he needs to work on.
I am fine with trading him for a potential big but he’s not some throw in. Hes an asset and we should get full value for him in any trade.

 

yes. again, if he played on some tanker last year, he's lighting up scoreboards and probably getting ROY. he was a bad defender, as rookies often are. and he had trouble adjusting to the speed of the nba game, as rookies often do. he wasn't ready to be part of an 8-man playoff rotation right out of the box. that doesn't mean it can't or won't happen, and perhaps quite soon.

as svtzr said, he's worth at least a 1st on the trade market, if not more, as the kinds of picks that change hands are generally outside the lotto, and you try finding a guy who's going to put up 40 in an nba game next year outside the lottery. again, it happens, but not often.

 

The Knect pendulum swings are drastic and that's not just here, twitter is the same way though. I think he hold the value of a mid first round pick, no more, no less.

He has a high end NBA skill but his biggest weakness is what sends players to weaker leagues overseas.

Here's a data point Buha hammered home multiple times: Since '96, DK grades out in the bottom 10% in defensive metric for ALL rookies. Sure he can improve but climbing out of that and not being a net negative on that end.... that's a MASSIVE hill for an older rookie.

 

i just remember the pining for bojan bogdanovic just a couple years ago...

 

Agree with the main point here, although a small quibble at the end, I think that series was closer than it seems. Rui for Collins, plus Luka not getting sick/food poisoning, the refs not botching the Luka tripping foul in the L2M, and if JJ didn't panic with the no rest 2H thing - combine all that, and I think Lakers beat Minny, and even have a solid shot against OKC. OKC is not all that, that they've been made out to be. Yes, they are very good, but they are also very beatable. Pushed to 7 against both Denver and Indiana, and I think Indiana has a very good chance of upsetting them today.

Anyway, I echo the sentiment of many here, if Lakers get a good big man and POA defender, they are in contention for the title next year.

 

This looks fantastic to me. Question/guess - is NAW a better POA defender than DFS? Yes, right? If so, I think you start him for defense. DFS can still play more min than NAW even, but you need to balance the defense by going NAW/Reaves/Luka/LeBron/Kessler. If NAW takes POA or the best opposing 1-3, Austin takes the 2nd best opposing 1-3, and Luka takes the worst opposing 1-3, with Kessler at the rim, that looks much better on defense than this past playoffs.

 

Here's my main Knecht question/issue. Luka/Austin/Knecht/LeBron/center does not look viable defensively. Looks great offensively, but also like it could run into Phoenix-type issues. You have to stagger them and play something like NAW/Austin/Knecht/LeBron/center just to be passable defensively. Switching Luka and LeBron is possible, but NAW/Austin/Knecht/Luka/center still looks pretty bad defensively.

And even when LeBron retires, can you play Luka/Austin/Knecht together? Doesn't seem like it. At least 1 or 2 of them would have to make a big jump defensively to be viable. Austin from decent to really good, or Luka from barely decent to moderately good, or Knecht from terrible to decent. So if you think that is likely to happen, then you try to keep Knecht, and just trade Rui+filler+draft capital for your big man. But if you don't think that those defensive jumps are likely, then it's better to trade Knecht.

 

Lakers need to sign this sharpshooting big

https://youtube.com/shorts/k-xJMSqmibo?si=FFYEZoFiDcKpPO2a

 

I really don’t like this notion of people wanting to just get off of LeBron. He was just great in the playoffs for us. We have Luka who is an offensive killer. We need a rim protecting big and another 2 way wing guy and this team can make another deep run w/ Lebron being the 2nd option. I think people forget what this looked like before LeBron.

 

none of this means you trade knecht for pennies on the dollar. he's being treated as a throw-in, which is poor use of an asset. it's up to our coach to find use for a guy he claims is a world-class shooter, imo. this might mean abandoning a fairly brainless switch-everything defensive philosophy that basically nobody employs successfully anyway. it's not like dantoni didn't try this in earnest with better defenders, lol.

again, two things can be true: the minny series was closer than it looked AND the difference wasn't a slight upgrade on rui. you didn't really point to anything rui didn't do that john collins would do to have swung that result. so why cash in a bunch of chips on such a move?