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

It's an outdated system for today's NBA, my friend.

Obviously, the most successful teams in the league still have one or two stars heading their rosters that elevate everyone else on the team to a higher level. That remains unchanged. However the league has actively evolved over the past seven or so years into an NBA where parity is/has been king and outright punishes teams that try to just star chase the old fashioned way over roster constructions built by winning on the margins (drafting well and developing young talent in-house, signing good role players to smart contracts, prioritizing depth, etc).

Why do you think that the three best teams in the league right now are OKC, San Antonio and Boston?

Yes, they each have their core star(s), but they also won on the margins every step of the way. Something the Lakers haven't managed to reliably do at all for years and are now paying the price for it, with our myriad of poor contract signings and draft selections over the past half decade all culminating in JJ running Luka and AR into the ground by overusing them due to his inability to trust/rely on the bench.

 

And if you took the superstars out of the equation, none of those teams are championship contenders period. Winning regular season games, doesn't garuntee playoffs success.

 

All the more reason to gamble on Giannis. I don't follow your logic at all on this take

 

As I already said in my last post, I completely agree that the presence of a superstar or two are what elevate a great roster to championship caliber.

My point is that you do not get that caliber anymore just by front loading a roster with multiple superstars and surround them with middling talent everywhere else. You have to win on the other margins and prioritize building a team with legitimate depth and two-way talent over getting as many superstars as possible.

Which is exactly what would happen with a Giannis trade for the Lakers at this point in time.

We have one of the worst benches in the league, with Vando in particular having one of the worst contracts in the league. We've missed completely on the last two First Round draftees we've picked, traded away our best young prospect in the Luka trade and are still developing Bronny and Adou. We have at least two legitimate vacancies in our starting roster with needing a long term starting Small Forward and starting Center, with the possibility of us also needing to look for a long term starting Power Forward too if LeBron leaves or retires this summer.

We haven't been winning on the margins for half a decade now and those sins are coming home to roost. You do not overcome that hurdle by trading away all our draft capital and over the entirety of our upcoming free cap space for one singular player, even if they are a superstar.

We've got our superstar in Luka already. Now comes the part where we actually have to be patient and work on addressing the myriad of margin needs this team has had for half a decade. Once we've dealt with all of that, if we need to go get another superstar to pair next to Luka, then we go do that. But the time of kicking the can down the curb has to stop now before anything else can be tackled.

 

The closest comp to Giannis is LeBron before he developed his jumper. James was still a beast but he wasn't 6-11 with a 7'3 wingspan either. That hits differently, this is why he's called the Greek Freak

 

The roster that I presented with a Giannis/Turner trade, is enough IMO. There is more than one way , to win a chip in the NBA. Denver just won a recent Championship, playing 8 players brother. We tend to get stuck on whatever the last Championship winning team did, and that's alway becomes the new model. Well again, what was the last team to repeat?

It's not some kind of Golden formula at play, besides maximize the talent available to you, and have some good luck with injuries.

 

Maybe it's because we're all Lakers fans here, IDK, but I think it's hilarious that everyone seems to be forgetting who the most successful team in the league has been this decade; Boston.

They made it to the Finals in 2022. They made it to the ECF in 2023. They won it all in 2024. They made another deep playoff run in 2025. They are insanely well poised to at least make the Finals again this year and it wouldn't shock me at all if they managed to beat OKC when they do. Likewise, if Boston doesn't pull that off, that'd most likely make OKC the first back-to-back NBA Championship team in the decade.

It's not just immediately reacting to what the latest championship winning team did. It's noticing the crucial details that define the most successful NBA teams this decade (Boston and OKC) have all been doing in contrast to everyone else, including the other teams that won a championship in the 2020s (Milwaukee, Lakers, GSW, Nuggets).

Obviously luck and health always plays a factor every year. And there isn't a single formula, considering Boston has gotten to where it is now compared to OKC or San Antonio a bit differently and ironically is probably the closest way for us to get to that kind of sustained annual postseason success. Obviously we aren't in a position to just tank for the next three years and draft several lottery superstars to surround Luka and AR with, we have to draft more supporting role players who can be ready to contribute and develop relatively quickly and be smart with our FA signings and trades.

Maybe you just care about getting one championship this decade, and if so, fair enough. I want another Lakers dynasty. I'm not expecting the Shaq-Kobe/Kobe-Pau era, but something similar to what OKC and Boston have set up for themselves this decade and what we had back during the Showtime era of always being competitive in the post season and winning multiple championships in the 2020s is what I want to see.

 

You guys don't think players would come here, for the vet minimum in order to play with Luka and Giannis? Shiit...Lebron James...will take the vet minimum for that opportunity!!



f*** Boston..I don't care about what they did, or what they are currently doing. OKC has all of ONE championship ring to their names, and I don't know if they beat Denver or San Antonio, in a 7 game series this season. Hell if Haliburton didn't get hurt, they wouldn't have a ring now!

So I say again... that the roster that I presented, is enough IMO, couple that with the comment above, and we're good. I'd roll that dice.. absolutely.


.

 

Thiero looks like the real deal. I'm trying to temper expectations, but the kid could play. I wouldn't want to include him in a Giannis trade. You know they would want everything but the kitchen sink. Now if Lebron said hey ill take the vet minimum and we don't have to trade Thiero, I wouldn't be upset if we traded for Giannis.

 

Isn’t the question why would AR, who has said he isn’t after every last dollar/million and as competitive as it gets wanting to win, agree to go to frigid rebuilding Milwaukee vs the Lakers even on a team friendly deal to help THEM better build for a chip and the golf weather out here 12 months a year? Am assuming you are thinking sign and trade him. And is Giannis going to be happy playing PnR with ball dominant Luka?

 

This is so incorrect. LeBron's IQ is one of the best ever. Giannis is miles away. That combined with the insanely bigger mid J and outside shooting arsenal + passing ability of Bron, comparing him with Giannis is crazy.
Giannis gets assists but he is not a passer. He just commands so much attention that it opens up for other guys. He's a bad passer. He's several tiers below Bron passing ability, much closer to AD's which is...bad.

Giannis is a freak. No doubt. No shooting, not great handles and a game purely based on athleticism. That's exactly what goes away first for older guys. LeBron is indeed the most comparable to Giannis in terms of physical attributes and that's exactly what disappeared from Bron where he can only use his athleticism in transition in recent years. He's unable to dribble by a guy and go to the basket on a mid-court setting. That'll be Giannis very soon, without the IQ, passing and shooting

Just like AD, in 2026 I want nothing to do with Giannis.
Sure, athletes in all sports are extending their careers and Giannis may extend it too. Still don't want to be the guy making that gamble on my team when having the opportunity to build a strong core and a competitive and deep team that can contend for years.

It's a bad decision on so many levels. Potential bad fit with Luka, having half of the roster on vet mins, no flexibility for the next 3-5 years, high risk of Giannis falling off a cliff, lack of defense and shooting, etc etc

You always defended Russ so I get your opinion. You just see basketball that away. I think it's outdated and several examples have proven that. Anyway, your opinions are always interesting because I never agree with you and it's like arguing with devil's advocate. Hurricane Billy is arguing for me, agree with what he's saying.

 

Btw, Ellis always plays low 20mins in Cleveland when they are fully healthy.

I'll be really pissed if we can't sell him a starting job and getting him on a nice contract that still allow us for some flexibility.
He's at 1.7M now. I can't buy that he jumps to ~20M while being a bench guy both in Sac and now Cleveland. Unless he has an insane playoff run, I'd say his market is more around 10M which would be an unbelievable contract.
Probably a shorter one as he must believe he can get a bigger one but he hasn't still got into a context that justifies it.

There's absolutely no team with a better context for him than us. And for price/value there's no one better we can get. Match made in heaven so reaaaaally wants us to get him

 

I've always thought of Giannis as something like the evolutionary Shaq. Shaq was the most physically dominant big in an era defined by bigs. Giannis is (or was) the most physically dominant point-forward type in an era that really trended toward 6'8" to 6'10" ish wings/mobile bigs. The guys that had been considered tweeners in other eras.

I'm somewhere in between you and Slick re Giannis. I think you're right there are fit concerns with Luka - Giannis didn't want to be primarily a P&R roll guy with Dame, which is what we'd need him to do, and he didn't want to play the 5 very much, which is what I think we'd want him to do. And the injury history is starting to pile up. But I do think it could work. I kind of see trading for Giannis as combining Austin and LeBron, in a way. Right now we have a 2a and 2b situation with Austin and LeBron with Austin as the second ballhandler/creator and LeBron as a third scoring option that can (and should) step into the #2 role in certain matchups while also providing some size/athleticism on the back end of our defense to help mitigate our lack of perimeter defenders. I think there's a version of Giannis that could fill both of those rolls in one player, while also being able to actually interact with Luka (via P&R) in a way that neither Austin nor LeBron really can.

If there's a scenario where we S&T Austin + something for Giannis and still somehow had some stuff left over to adjust the supporting cast, I'd seriously think about. I like the 2a/2b situation we have now, but ultimately Giannis, even past his peak, is a significantly better player than Austin will ever be and I don't know if LeBron is capable of being a 2b caliber player next season. He's declined materially since last season IMO, aside from any change in role. There's also the fact that, IMO, we're not in a particularly great spot, relative to expectations. Having a 27 year old Luka in LA automatically puts us in a better situation than like 28 other teams, but the Thunder/Spurs are better than us, younger than us and have more assets to improve/replace talent going forward. I think most of us acknowledge that we aren't going to be able to build a team as deep as theirs. It's going to take a lot to vault ourselves into the same tier as them over the next few seasons, it might require a big swing.

But I'm pretty sure any trade we make for Giannis would be Austin plus all of our draft capital, in which case I'm out. I don't think we'd have enough time to build up a supporting cast before Giannis transitioned from tail-end of his prime to a different stage of his career. Plus I seriously doubt Giannis would ever demand to be here and only here, which is what I think it would take for the Bucks to take even our maximum offer.

 

...... hey now that's my description years back on arguing with Slick

 

Right. I see no reason for AR to agree to this. Never have honestly.

 

Because he is 27 and hasn't made a ton of money in his career. This is very possibly the only big contract he'll ever get. In this scenario, he doesn't have the option of just re-signing here. We're telling him we want to trade him for Giannis. He's really not in a position to say no thank you to a $40 million a year offer from Milwaukee. The cap space has dried up. I guess the Bulls could make him an offer, but it would be pretty dumb of them to sign Austin to a huge deal. But that's kind of their thing so maybe they would do it lol.

 

My money is on Mark Walter continuing to be super smart at competitive sports ownership and not making a wild swing for the fences his first chance out of the gate, that has so many chances to go wrong and hamstring him for the next six years with no picks or many ways to improve after the "potential" disaster. He built the best farm system in the Major Leagues, which could be likened to Mark likes depth. Sure he signed all those monster names too but totally different money system up to this point.

I still think Rui comes back just for the Japan connection, and maybe they hook him up with a sports psychologist to see why he doesn't rebound better.

 

I dont think LeBron wins a ring with the Bucks and would had jumped ship at an earlier age than Giannis to join a super team

 

I disagree completely. He absolutely loves playing for the Lakers and loves living in SoCal where he can golf year round. He’s going to make in the high 30 millions while playing for us AND doesn’t have to move to the God-forsaken frozen tundra. Even if he only gets $35 million per from the Lakers, that extra $5 million isn’t a huge difference if you aren’t a complete fool with investing.
Furthermore, Austin isn’t an injury prone player who will be done by the time this contract is up- he will still be making in the mid $20 millions per, even when his game drops off a bit.

 

...ehhh. I don't agree with this one at all honestly.

He absolutely will be in a position to tell us no thank you to a Bucks trade. I don't remember the exact list, but we aren't the only team that will have enough caproom to sign him outright.

The Bucks are a complete dumpster fire with Giannis and have nothing to offer from a competitive side. That's before even factoring in the location.

Yes, he will want to get paid, but I think he and his agent can definitely do better than the Bucks. Given that he wants to be here, he might even be willing to take a bit less just to spite us.

I see no real incentive for him to help us facilitate a trade that puts him in a terrible situation both on and off the court