2026-27 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

Is is so crazy to think that from here on out Utah and Washington will be better than us?

We have no assets, if Reaves isn’t a good number 2, Kessler can’t stay on the floor in the playoffs or any of the big 3 are injured - we could just be a first round exit for the next 3-4 years. Those teams will probably be the same, but they have slot more young guys with star potential than we do. Carr who looks to be an excellent prospect is more likely a starting 3&D wing whereas each of Utah and Washington got what looks like a franchise corner piece.

Utah has a load of picks and a pretty fantastic team:

Peterson
George
Bailey
Markannen
JJJ

Depending how good Peterson and Bailey are, If they can pick up a few more pieces or trade for one very good piece, they can be a top team in the west for the next 5 years.

Likewise Washington are in a really good position, with Dybantsa, George, Sarr and Tre. If they can flip AD and Trae for more pieces eventually - they’ll be a top eastern team.

 

noted.

 

Hopefully not, because we don't control our picks, except for 2032. The next 5 years, our 1st-rd picks our out of our control, so we need to win. If we happen to do bad this year (between 4 and 10, which would be a disaster, we would have a decent chance of keeping our top 4 protected pick.

 

Actually yes it is crazy. A lot of “ifs” have to go right for those teams. A lot of “ifs” are based on things going wrong for us.

Why should we buy a rosy perspective for them but a grim outlook for our team?

Could those teams end up having promising futures? Sure, but it’s largely based on unproven 20 year olds turning into superstars. Hard pass.

 

yeah, i didn't feel like bothering, but the doomerism for anything lakers and the complete pie-in-the-sky prognostications for anyone else is hard to take for me.

like, you're counting on anthony davis to be healthy whilst banking on luka and reaves to go down (apparently due to flailing, which is their only offensive talent).

gross.

 

AD is better than AR? Da hell.

 

Some roster gymnastics is going to be needed if we're getting Kuminga and not just on our side

 

Feel like they could look to dump Hield or Kispert in this deal. They can also waive Gueye's non-GTD minimum contract. Or, just keep it simple and make it Laravia for Kuminga with an offer up to $13.5M per and call it a day.

 

guess i've always imagined that rob was trying to broker a 3-4 team deal, where two of our guys ended up elsewhere.

you could send a 2nd with each of knecht and laravia to get teams to eat their one-year deals, imo (jhs took two, but he also showed absolutely zero on-court value). our last second (plus maybe cutting in atl on one of our our pre-existing swaps) could net kuminga a deal starting around 17 (PO on the second year). atlanta gets a couple small goodies for facilitating; vando is kept out entirely, no new roster additions for the hawks.

the guy's own trade scenario is probably rosier than mine:

i don't think you can dump vando for a second rounder alone.

i will also reiterate that we could s/w vando, move knecht and laravia into space, and....i think...open up enough space to offer kuminga something over the mle. if we retain a 2nd in the process, atl can trade him into space for the second.

 

Once upon a time, CL had Club Sites for the Jazz and Wizards....maybe they are still up so you can be "a fan" over there? But that's just my opinion.

 

LOL Good times! I totally forgot about those!

I actually was a regular member of Club Wizards, started off just wanting to check it out while considering the Wizards an East Coast team I rooted for cause I liked the Arenas, Butler, Jamison trio. But then they started up a Sim League over at CW and it was super fun! Basically we started with the rosters from a certain year, each member picked a team, and then every few days they would simulate a week of games. You would DM other members to try to negotiate trades, could write fake articles for “cash” to throw in to trades or improve players. Fun stuff lol

And then eventually I got a little power hungry and convinced someone to open up Club Video Games and made me the admin

 

I know it was already looking extremely unlikely that we’d be able to sign and trade Lebron, but now I believe it is officially impossible

 

For me its Carr and Manon. I think both have a lot of potential. Thiero does too but he's still raw to me. We need to really develop all of them.

 

i think that's right--without his rights, we can't do a s&t.

i think we've made every deal official except the kessler trade. i thought we were trying to expand the hardy trade, but clearly, the kessler trade is the one we're trying to expand.

time for those new random cap experts to work their magic!

 

I remember CL doing that....I miss that.

I would be down to do it again, because I have learned MANY lessons from the last time I participated, but it seems like it's hard to manage.

I tried to be the head site person of the Club Jazz site, but it didn't last long. Was WAY TOO YOUNG to be trying to take that all on, but I thought I knew enough then to man it.

Oh well.

 

They've got good young prospects but I don't see a guy on the Wizards or Jazz that will be better than Luka. I also think that without changes to the CBA those teams will run into the same issues others are with trying to keep those teams together once its time to start resigning talent.

I tend to agree with the thought that a lot has to fall into place for them and a lot has to go wrong for us for either team to end up ahead of us.

While the draft pick cupboard is bare for us right now, that's not insurmountable in my honest opinion.

Looking at Donovan Mitchell's contract, I think that AR deal is going to actually look better and better as time goes by. I said at the beginning that a lot of the pushback around his contract was just sticker shock and maintain that position.

Kessler is tough to predict since I really don't know how injured he actually was versus the Jazz just tanking. But if we can get him on the floor most of the season his price tag is good for a starting center.

Should things really go south, I think we will bring in someone new to run the front office and they will have at least a few pieces to work with to obtain other players and / or draft capital. I don't like the player options on some guys, but the right exec might even be able to flip those as well.

Bottom line, I'm much much more concerned about OKC and the Spurs among the teams in the West when it comes to us competing for titles.

Things will be tight in the West again, but Luka can legit get you to 40 to 50 wins by himself at this point. We will be okay absent a season ending injury.

 

At this rate, if we follow the general consensus around here with some people, everyone is better than us now because we didn't re-sign LeBron and gave Reaves TOO MUCH of a contract. Great!

And water is wet and the Sky is Blue.

Like, I don't know if people are truly believing that we are going to go to the Finals now, around here, just because of this off-season. If they do, I have questions. But for everyone that says we are automatically a tank team and we screwed up our future on picks and all that.....MAYBE! Don't know. Don't care. And for you I have questions too.

This pick for next year that we traded to Utah with Russ IS protected, so maybe we keep it? Who knows.

But HOW ABOUT.....we get to training camp and see Luka facilitate this team before we just guess that we are royally screwed. I never thought that the world would crash because we signed Looney as a back-up Center, but I guess here we are.

Most of the fans around here that have seen it all and been through it all, recognize that we CAN be good...but are likely to not be good, and ONE WRONG THING and we suck.......and most of us are okay with that. We are sorry we don't have it in us to hate our own team so hard just because LeBron decided to dip. We didn't want to keep hanging our stock on him being the main guy of this team, when HE has cost us a lot too just because he thinks he knows best, so we are quickly at peace that he bounced. Sorry that is hard to hear for some of these newer fans that believe we have to be good all the time or we are nothing.

Realize that you CAN be good, even with young, inexperienced people. Or hell....SHOCKINGLY.....entertaining enough to watch and be excited. So, let's watch and wait. Maybe this team surprises us.

Anyways, rant over. Soap box gone. Proceed to keep complaining at your leisure and hope you have a great day and a great season.

 

What do you posters think of Timberwolves center Rocco Zikarsky? And the possibility of the lakers trading for him. Supposedly the Lakers had interest in the 7'2 left handed clone of Walker Kessler in the 2025 draft. We traded up for Theiro instead. The Wolves Ant has expressed he would like to get Vanderbilt back on the team and the Wolves have interest in this too. Why not package Vandy and Knecht for Zikarsky and Josh Green, a 3-D forward brought back in the Ball trade? The money is close in the Lakers favor and we move 2 players we don't want for a backup center and a forward that we need. I wish I could get in Pelinka's ear and tell him this trade is just waiting for him to call about. It solves 2 needs and we still can move Bronny, Hardy, and Laravia for another wing.

 

If it don't work out we have to do the unthinkable. Pull the plug trade Luka for young pieces and draft capital. Then do the same with AR but I think he willl be more difficult to move.