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

this is kind of where i am on it. can he still play? yes. does he do things we could use? yes. has he been a complete team-killer at his last two stops? yes. does it make sense to have both a 38 year old and a 41 year old as part of your top 4 players? probably not.

i'm also not sure if houston would just take vando for him, as that's about all i'd offer. i guess vando/laravia/knecht makes it to where you're only absorbing about 22m for durant, which probably leaves enough to sign lebron and smart and kennard.

but do lebron and smart take their cuts for kd? iffy, imo. and we'd still be an unathletic team with very suspect perimeter defense.

i think houston should trade kd and their picks to milwaukee for giannis, then milwaukee should take bids from contenders for kd. a three-cornered deal where houston gets giannis and miami gets durant and milwaukee gets picks from both sides could totally happen this summer, imo.

 

Follow up with a separate trade: Ayton + Knecht for a 2028 2nd round pick. Opens up more cap-room for us.

 

If I'm the Pistons, I want Reaves not Markkanen. The Pistons need shooting, but even more than that I think they need another reliable ballhandler/advantage creator. Right now we're seeing that really all they have in the halfcourt is Cade. They were hoping to have Ivey as a secondary ballhandler/creator, but that obviously didn't work out.

I think last offseason I floated a Reaves + something for Duren/Ivey deal because I genuinely thought it made sense for both teams. I like Duren, he brings a physicality and every-night toughness that we don't get from Ayton, in addition to just being a better player. He really only became a consistently strong defensive player this season, prior to this year he struggled in P&R quite a bit and the Pistons fans widely considered Stewart the better defender. I wouldn't want to trade Reaves for him now, I'd want to pair him with both Luka and Reaves even if it meant losing LeBron. I'm one of the bigger "we can't afford to lose LeBron" proponents, but this is one where I'd be fine going in a different direction and committing to a Luka/Reaves/Duren core at the expense of our other free agents. I know Duren has been struggling in this Magic series, but I think he's good, still improving and is the kind of physical tone setter that we need for Luka/Austin.

I'm sure the Pistons probably just re-sign him, but if they don't I'd be interested in jumping in here.

 

I think not bringing back Lebron is something that we shouldn't take so lightly. I'm assuming he will be back, at a great value contract. They can't just do him dirty, it's not the right thing to do, and it would be a bad look for the franchise.

 

I'm not sure if Austin would agree to play there.

 

Just when we thought we were done with this whistle baiting ball playing with Harden, here comes this guy smh.

 

Big no on KD. He's a snake and locker room killer for whatever reason. We need to go young, OKC and Wemby are no joke. It will take multiple shots at the title to win it, we need young legs

 

I've addressed this before, but Austin is below the caliber of player that have historically limited themselves to glamour markets. Better players than Austin have taken max money from s***ty franchises in cold weather cities. We're also talking about the #1 seed in the East this year, this would not be a situation where he'd be winning 20 games a year the rest of his prime. Saying Austin wouldn't agree to play in Detroit is like saying Pascal Siakam wouldn't agree to re-sign in Indiana. Pascal Siakam isn't good enough to think like that.

 

So you can mind read? He takes max to go somewhere he really doesn't want to, over a deal that might be engineered by the Lakers with his blessing to be team advantageous in subsequent years, which has also been discussed? You just state it as fact pretty much.

 

Fair enough. At least we send one limited defense offensive player for another. Luka, Reaves, and Duren together might not be the best for use defensively, since Duren cant cover for them. Would have to get a 3 and D player for that Reaves spot then.

 

Rob

 

Yeah, that is currently a joke. I can just see all those NBA admin guys laughing over a bottle of wine. Hey the idiots think we are actually using ping pong balls!!!!!

 

i like duren, but maybe not quite as much as most of the forum does. if det balks at a max, what does that mean? and in order to offer him his max, we'd have to lose, like, everyone--some by force (ayton would have to opt out, etc.).

so does luka/duren/reaves/one of smart and kennard/thiero/jake make a better team than others we've suggested? will lebron take the cut everyone got mad at me for suggesting in order to make this happen?

 

The trade would likely have to involve Reaves imo. I proposed a similar trade for Kessler, but people didn't like that one much. I think they prefer Duran because he has good durability, compared to Kessler, who has been injured a lot.