2025-26 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

I understand the argument about trades not being made despite some assets still being available, but we still need to consider the FO's desire not to go beyond a certain salary deadline to maintain this phantom flexibility in 2027.

And if you have a lot of players expiring, what you can end up getting are long contracts from teams that don't need those long contracts and want to get rid of them.

So it all comes down to this...
Right or wrong, the flexibility to maneuver is extremely limited.

 

I’m looking forward to seeing the lineup of Luka/Reaves/Knect/LaRavia/Kleber have time together on the floor and how that would look

 

Well put

 

Yet

But he is improving at a quick pace

Willingness to learn and putting in the work goes a long ways

We'll just have to wait and see

 

Agree

Some solid summaries today @Cookie

 

They are going to get torched on defense.

 

so far over quota




Minnesota is probably the last time the Lakers had 5 such players on their roster at the same time.

 

What Travis knight didn’t want any of that?

 

Some 80s Laker teams had 5 paler guys on the roster

 

ok, been out of town for a bit, so i hadn't had a chance to really register thoughts, and now that the offseason looks done, i'll render judgment. i'll apologize in advance for some recapitulation of a) things others have already said (perhaps more clearly), and b) things i've already said.

overall, i think i give the offseason a B+. if you had told me ahead of time that we'd lose DFS/goodwin/melton and add ayton/smart/laravia/thiero, i would have called it an A+.

while i don't share the level of concern that weezy has about these things, the way the DFS stuff went and the fact that we had to cut goodwin kind of stick in my craw a bit. the third thing that dampened the offseason was knecht's utter lack of progress (and our inability to actively hide this from everyone else), and this is why the overall grade drops some. i can and will argue/push back against doomerism about these issues, as i think a) they're not that big of a deal and b) i could end up being wrong about all of it--maybe we were perfectly fine in negotiations with DFS, maybe goodwin isn't really an nba rotation player, and maybe knecht will be fine and end up helping us on the court somehow.

anyway, some bullet point specifics:

-really like the ayton signing and what it took to get him. i think he can do the things we need and is a potential long-term fit as well. i wanted mark williams, but ayton is better and not much older, and we got him for free. beats the hell out of lopez or capela. and people need to stop acting like it doesn't take good work from the gm to make something like this happen. it's not a trade--hell, i advocated trading for ayton using our expirings--but it's actually better and took serious negotiating acumen to accomplish. i think this was the best possible thing that could have happened at center, tbh.

-smart is another nice move for another player i was willing to trade expirings for. i am quite concerned about his health and conditioning, but if we even get a second-rate version of him, it could be a huge add. as i mentioned somewhere else, very mwp-ish, imo. we didn't get prime artest, but we got a guy who really did a bunch of stuff needed. same could happen here, and again, he could be here for 3-4 years. great fit between reaves and luka, imo. not the DJJ or keon ellis i wanted, but none of those guys switched teams.

it's quite possible melton or even okogie ends up a better player going forward, but i can't fault the FO for choosing smart here. also, i think melton's prior relationship with gs helped grease the wheels there.

-laravia is this year's lonnie walker to me. kind of a back scratching between team and agency that could go a few directions. i like him better than i liked walker when we signed him, but i think it's naive to suggest he would have been a top, day-1 FA target if he didn't share an agent with reaves. none of this downplays his ability--he's a two-way wing with high hoop iq who can basically fit in any system--it's just that it wasn't an obvious need. anyway, i think it's going to work out nicely, tbh.

-i don't think rob spread stuff about DFS to dampen the market. i think that's simply not true. i do think DFS thinks or at least thought this for a while, and that's not great. aside from that, DFS was not a luxury we could afford with our salary structure and future plans. houston can afford to overpay spot duty guys like adams, capela, and DFS--and i imagine there will be some hand-wringing here if and when that team is really successful. but they have some key guys on rookie deals and had to be s***ty for years to get to this spot; this isn't how we operate.

-as for the no splashy trades, i think teams are always trying to bend us over, and i'm glad we pulled an end around on them with the buyout pickups. between these and the luka trade, i wonder if some gms might decide it's better to deal in good faith with rob than force him to use other tools. i think we've proven to be patient and wise in a lot of instances in the past couple years.

-i don't think there's a 2027 plan for giannis/jokic or whatever. i think we want to make sure we're not out of the running should something of that magnitude arise while understanding it's unlikely. i do think there's a 2026 plan to have as clean books as we can in case lebron decides to bolt. if he doesn't, we're in good position to retain whichever FAs we wish to. btw, i think this is part of hitch with rui. i don't think we extend him unless he's taking a very team-friendly deal. i'm not sure he's quite starter-on-a-contender level, but he's probably wanting that 25-30 million per deal. not doing that until/unless he proves it on the court this year. if he fusses, i'd ship him out rather than deal with the headache. and he might, because my concluding thought is that if smart is in shape and healthy, i think he should start in rui's place. if he's not cool with that, we should trade him for an expiring and whatever prospect/pick combo we can get.

in sum, i think we're clearly in the second tier in the west (okc/hou/den is tier 1) with gs, the clips, minny, and (i think) SA and dallas. i know that annoys people, but if you watched last year, most teams i just mentioned look better on paper than indy did in july 2024. there's more parity in the league than there used to be. we're good enough to contend if we get some lucky breaks, but we're not a favorite. i think we have paths to getting there in the future while being very good in the present, though.

 

Proof needed sir. My prior research seems to conflict with that claim. I don't ever recall ever seeing more than 3 for some reason. Maybe that's official roster after summer camp and training camp is over. Those don't count if they aren't on the official roster.

 

I'm not sure I understand not being able to flip a Milton for a 2nd to a team that wants an expiring contract. Essentially you still get to get the money off of your books, and you get a future asset. Couldn't we do the same with Goodwin? We got nothing. Seems like that was a bit of a waste, but maybe the new CBA rules make that much more complicated than I realize.

 

CP3 back to Clippers

 

Do he and Smart have any like to fight history? Asking for many friends.

 

are the clips trying to break the 01 jazz record for oldest team in league history?

 

I see the tiers the same and that’s what makes me lean positive on the team and our offseason. Looking at the standings from last year, the only team I feel like really jumped past us is Den. That sucks for obvious reasons but I think we still end up 4th or 5th with a chance to again finish in the top 3 should things fall our way.


I also think Ayton would be the signing of the offseason if he landed with any team but us.

Overall we still have some things I hope we can address but the offseason has been good. I don’t know how an objective view of it could say we didn’t make the most of what was available and we’ve still got assets we can use to make more moves.

 

He fight with Pau ,now it's Ayton turn