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

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree we should draft well and a strong emphasis needs to be put on that. I just find it hard to care about a player while they are in college playing junk ball. The quality of the sport is poor overall apart from key matchups.

Once they're on the team, I'm happy for them to get a run and I like watching the development. Heck, I'm on the side of Adou should be getting 15 mins a game today. I just can't understand watching college ball, talking about next year, when we're top 6 in the West. Maybe we're out in the first, maybe our team goes on a run, you never know. But I'm invested.

 

Drafting well is definitely an important part of building a roster. Particularly when you find guys who appear to be NBA ready like the ones @OverseasG have mentioned.

We need athleticism and good defenders and there are a number of guys who fit that bill in this draft.

 

Also think our whiffs on JHS and Dalton are hurting us right now even if we only look at it from an asset perspective. At the very least we were able to use Lonzo, Ingram, etc to get AD and Max to get Luka.

We are struggling to even throw Dalton in to make the cap numbers work.

 

Just saw this after my other comments.

The college game isn’t for everyone but I do enjoy it.

 

i think we're 60 games into the season, and we've kind of learned all we're going to learn until the playoffs, right? like, i'm under no illusion that the knicks game was a turning point, and now we're better. we've established who we are, so now it's a matter of who we play in the playoffs and whether or not we show up. hence i think people have energy and interest in discussing other things.

the draft/prospects is the last topic on which i don't find myself just repeating the same stuff over and over at this point. if there's a new discussion to be had about the current team, i'm all ears, lol.

 

I just can't stand OKC and SGA. I'm going to play the what if game but I just never could imagine Luka or Lebron being allowed to do this. The ref still treat Lebron like he's in his prime similar to Shaq

 

luka's the same as lebron. in the knicks game, hart and anunoby were just climbing his back with a live dribble all game long like toddlers wrasslin' their dad or something.

it's great that SGA can make that shot, but he shouldn't be getting it that clean, and at this point, the refs have actively decided to allow it, much like the harden mvp candidate years where they decided him grabbing defenders's arms was a foul on them.

 

The Lakers need to tell LeBron take as much time as you can to heal that foot and shoulder. Let’s see what these other guys can do.

 

thanks a lot luke kornet and al horford

 

When LeBron is out I believe the team roles are much more defined especially for AR and Rui

 

what a joke. All the strippers that load up airplanes on all star weekend. What a hypocrite joke. We have no strippers in Basketball. For the Record the Lemon Pepper Wings are the best you can get anywhere. I would go there just to eat. Facts.

but Magic City is about the culture the City the hip hop. And yes players go there regularly. What a nice night. It’s a strip club. Nobody is giving lap dances courtside. So soft.

so Silver has no spine.

the owner who came up with this idea of the hawks is a woman. Who made produced a documentary on Magic City.

but Kornets gonna tell women what to do with their bodies cause he’s a man.

 

Krivas can dunk/catch lobs, but yes, he's definitely more in that IHart and Kessler mold offensively. However he's a bonafide beast defensively as a rim protector, with similar size to Kessler (7'2" height, 7'6" wingspan, 260 lbs) and has the potential to eventually become a floor spacer. Basically the argument for Krivas IMO isn't all that dissimilar to the arguments in favor of us trying to go after Walker Kessler; he's a huge 7ft Big who can catch lobs as needed, but more importantly is a steel wall of rim protection on defense. However IMO Krivas' main advantage over Mara is that he seems more NBA ready than Mara, who'd absolutely be a development project for us for the first year or two due to his conditioning and currently poor shotmaking. With Krivas, I feel like you could plug and play him pretty easily, even if he'd still continue to improve as a player in the league for his first few years.

That said, I wouldn't be mad at all if we walk out of Draft Night having gone with Aday Mara either. Honestly the comp I keep coming back to for Mara is Pau and Marc Gasol. Which makes sense, seeing as how Mara has stated in an interview that Pau was his favorite basketball player to watch in the NBA growing up. I do think Mara would probably "fit in" better with the Lakers than Krivas, if that makes any sense, but I also think Krivas would have a far more immediate impact on the team.

I like Bidunga a lot and I think it'd be silly to argue that he wouldn't be an immediate fit alongside Luka, but ideally I'm hoping he falls into the Second Round and the Lakers just buy into the early Second Round and pick him up there after already getting at least one of the other Bigs (Mara, Krivas or Morez).

I definitely want us to find a way to get another pick this year. We could plug in a couple of very important roster needs very easily by drafting a Big and another player. For example, if say we draft Morez Johnson with the #21/22 pick and then Krivas or Mara fall into the Second Round, leading to us buying up an early 2nd to nab them up too? Right away, the Lakers will have drafted their long term starting frontcourt for the Luka+AR era. Or if we draft Krivas and Bidunga, we'll have two great defensive minded Bigs on the roster next year that can offer the team versatility on rim protection and offensive schemes.

Morez Johnson Jr. intrigues me a lot as a potential option at Center for the Lakers. Dude's game seems kinda similar to a more compact Joel Embiid or Isaiah Stewart imo. Shades of Gafford in him too.

 

This is exactly why I think it'd be a huge mistake for the Lakers to prioritize drafting a guard or a wing this summer versus them drafting at least one Center of some sort. Bigs are a rather rare and pricey commodity to come by in the NBA and there's going to be more options for us getting wings in the league this summer IMO than Centers.

 

Same, I enjoy watching the college game especially the big matchups. There’s some quality ball being played and it’s not just all blow outs. I’m a big fan of traditional bigs, and the post game is still alive at the college level. It’s definitely early to be talking about it now but I like hearing everyone’s player evals and looking for that next rotation piece.

 

yeah, krivas is highest on my board of this group because he reminds me of kessler, for whom people want to pay 30+ million. i think mara's got to work on his body. he has higher upside, but as you said, it could take longer and/or never happen. i think krivas could probably play 15 useful mpg next year.

i like johnson more than bidunga. the latter just seems too small to play his game in the nba. johnson worries me this way, too, but i think he's got a bigger frame and i've seen more touch/skill from him, which could allow him to step out on offense. it's hard for me to come up with comps for either of these guys (i get the capela comps for bidunga, but i think even young capela was bigger).

anyway, at least one if not more of that group will be on the board wherever we pick. the lotto is guard/forward heavy this year.

 

Meant to mention you as well earlier. Thanks for the breakdowns as I haven't been able to watch as much college hoops this year as usual.

 

Completely agree.

Also looking at the injury issues bigs seem to be facing more and more these days, I think the younger a guy you get the better.

 

I love Bidunga but I'm biased being a Jayhawk. Good kid. Great defender.

 

i've seen him pop but also seen him just erased by size. the nba has lots more of that than college does.

 

Yeah. I'm not sure how tall he actually is. I'm curious to what his official measurements will be come draft time.