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

That's a great point regarding OKC and the pick swaps. Also, that is great information regarding Pelinka being at the Big 10 Conf tournament this weekend. Yeah, Mara makes so much sense. He might be the best lob-catching/rim-protecting center that we could possibly get. He has the Luka/Spain connection, the Pelinka/Michigan connection, the Lakers fanbase/Pau Gasol connection, etc. Rob might see this as an opportunity to make his version of the Jerry West draft-day move for Kobe. Yeah, and I could see us also getting Morez at #25. If we loose Lebron and Rui, both about 6-8/6-9 and 240-250, we could help try to replace them with a similarly sized player, such as Morez. He also has experience playing in a front court with Mara, so they have that going. Also, he's another Michigan guy. Rob would love this lol. Also Morez can defend both 4s and 5s and could switch on to smaller players. He could act as a small ball center, and he is a decent lob threat and rim protector I'm his own right. His shooting has been limited, but it shows promise.

 

About time, feel like this has rumor that everyone knows is actually happening for like 5 years at least. Minnesota makes the most sense as the team to move East IMO. Memphis is geographically farther East, but Minnesota is the clear outlier within their own division and in terms of distance from the rest of the Western teams generally.

I think putting all of these franchises in Vegas is kind of lame and hasn't yielded great sporting environments outside of the Knights. I'm a Chargers fan and we get tons of s*** for having our home games overrun by other fans, but the Raiders have been just as bad since they moved.

 

As the anti pundits would say, but he is missing 60%!!!!!

 

I don't like the idea of Minnesota moving east. I have family connections to Minny and have been traveling there my whole life. If you can get past the insanely cold winters, it's an awesome place fully of really cool people. I maintain it's the best kept secret in the country, and I've never had any ill will towards the Timberwolves. To me the Eastern Conference has always felt trashy and alien, and I don't think the Timberwolves belong there. Ja Morant and the Grizzlies on the other hand . . . take 'em.

 

As an East Coast Lakers fan, I would argue that the best way to helping improve the Eastern Conference involves moving a good team like the Timberwolves over there, as opposed to shipping off one of the West's two worst teams in the Grizzlies or the Pelicans, in order to help inject more genuine competition between the best teams in the East. Plus Minnesota is just so isolated from the rest of the Western Conference teams and is in much closer proximity to multiple Eastern Conference teams in comparison to Memphis and New Orleans.

Exactly. We'll see what happens though!

 

For what it's worth when discussing AR's cap hold, vasashi17+ on LG who is a legit expert with it and there is a dedicated thread titled Lakers Salary Cap for those wanting his numbers ..... has Austin's hold at that lower 20.9M figure.

 

Good to know. That would be great!

 

my wife is from minnesota; i love it there. but yeah, so cold from january to march...

i've tried to get my wife to live there in the summer, though--it's beautiful then.

hey i told you guys this weeks ago when pincus said it was the higher number! it all depends on what the actual average nba salary is (and how it's calculate). i don't know if we have that information, but if what i googled was right, his hold was the lower number (and hayes's is the higher one--though only by a couple million).

 

Yeah hopefully that is the case. I'm not very optimistic so I like to use the lower number just in case. But either way I think we would be good.

 

Resign Smart and Kennard, draft a Lob Threat / Rim-Protector, trade for Dort, sign Thybulle, Clarkson, draft 3 and D athletic shooter would be a good off-season.

This year, we are playing well even though we don't have an elite rim protector. Ayton and Hayes are decent at it though. Hayes is improved. Having a rotation with Smart, Dort, Thybulle, Thiero, LaRavia, Vando, and maybe a young athletic shooter defender like Carr would be elite on defense. Smothering the other teams. This year Smart back to doing Smart things on that end. LaRavia's defense has been excellent, Vando is an elite defende but his bad offense cant keep him on the floor. But other than that we don't really have any defensive identity players, that I could think of anyway. Clarkson ads a third bucket getter behind Luka and Reaves. He's a Klutch client and maybe he ends his career where he started. Kennard ensures we have an elite shooter in there for at least half of the game.

 

This would be a good off-season for sure. But I definitely will be vocal as long as I can about the idea of us also trying to find room and means to get one of either Tari Eason or Peyton Watson to round out the starting lineup and let Marcus be our 6th Man.

I personally only really like Thybulle if we're getting him for dirt cheap and he's exclusively a bench piece for us for depth, so that we don't have to worry too much about this exact issue being a problem for us in the regular season.