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

@LTLakerFan just got renounced by Lakersball. He won't be posting here anymore. He's taken his talent and calf identifying abilities to LG.

It was a good run, but he's gone.

 

Well that really took a strange turn. I said don’t sleep on the Wizards and Jazz and now I should go be a fan of theirs? What happened to objectivity… both teams got chances to tank for half a decade and have some good pieces and lots of picks. They’re both where the Spurs, Detroit and OKC were 2-3 years ago. It all depends on how good Dybantsa and Peterson are - but they do look like excellent prospects.

As for my comment about them being as good as us moving forward, it was less about them and more about us. No one wanted to touch my other post that detailed the things we need to improve on. Namely:

- What is our closing 5? Last year we were elite in the clutch because we could score and get stops when needed? We have Luka, Reaves and Grimes - who else closes?

- What happens if Kessler - an elite defensive player face a 5 out offense and can’t stay on the floor just like other elite bigs got played off the floor in the playoffs like Duren, Hartenstein, Gobert, Allen, Clingan etc?

- Where does the defense come from? Let’s assume Grimes is the POA on our starting team, who backs him up and who is our wing defenders? I get we need to finish the offseason and see if we can pick up some more players.

- For us to be a contender we need to many things to all fall in our favour; Luka at MVP level, Reaves needs to be at an All Star level, Kessler needs to be near DPOY, Grimes has to put both sides of the ball together, we need another starter at PF, one of Carr, Jake or Adou has to becomes a top 8 rotation player.

- What happens if one of Luka or Kessler misses time with bad health? One is our offensive engine and one is our whole defense (and we have Looney playing 25+ mins at C then)

I see us currently 5th-8th. OKC, Spurs, Wolves, Nuggets and Rockets probably finish above us.

That isn’t being negative. We’re a good team, we just aren’t top of the west good. Is that ok to say? Or do I need to go support another team now that not everything is golden and rosy?

 

the issue is i can ask these questions of just about every team, and the answers can be just as or even more dubious.

like, we need luka to be an mvp level player and reaves to be an allstar level player is being phrased like...they haven't already been doing this. meanwhile, we're certain darryn peterson is going to ascend to superstardom by year 3. we're not concerned that say, peterson missed most of his season in college due to a strange injury, but we are VERY concerned that kessler missed most of last season with a shoulder injury. well, not that concerned, because now that we signed him, he's actually not that good on defense and shall be played off the court in the playoffs that we're not going to make anyway.

 

We don’t have any cap space to sign anyone above the vet minimum right now. We can dump players to cap teams - which is difficult, or more likely use some of our guys in trades. This got lost a few pages back, but all of these are still possible:


Trading Scenarios

Scenario - 1 Player going out and how much can come back

• Bronny: $4.85m
• Knecht: $8.65m
• Hardy/Jake: $12.25m
• Vando: $21.5m

Scenario - 2 Players going out and how much can come back

• Bronny + Knecht: $13.25m
• Bronny + Jake/Hardy: $17.4m
• Knecht + Jake/Hardy: $19.3m
• Jake + Hardy: $21.1m
• Bronny + Vando: $23.8m
• Knecht + Vando: $25.7m
• Hardy/Jake + Vando: $27.5m

Scenario - 3 Players going out and how much can come back

• Bronny + Knecht + Jake/Hardy: $21.6m
• Knecht + Jake + Hardy: $25.3m
• Bronny + Knecht + Vando: $28m
• Knecht + Hardy/Jake + Vando: $31.7m
• Hardy + Jake + Vando: $33.5m

I can't see us doing a 4 or 5 player out trade. So we can take anywhere from $5m to $33.5m.

 

I hope he’s still an option for us.

 

I think the difference is young and Ad were perennial allstars but injury prone. We know what we have in Luka it's Astin and Walker and we still not sure about. I think we will be fine because I think we will get the whistle with two players that knows how to play the foul game.

 

Honestly, I don’t think any of us care that really about the other teams. Yes we could write up everyone’s issues just as easily, no team is perfect, but this is a lakers forum, we discuss our own.

You really don’t want to touch upon the fact that Kessler can get played off the floor? It happens to some of the best centers in the league - this isn’t singling out Kessler, it’s just the trend of all bigs not playing as much in the post season.

Just a week ago before the Walker trade you were saying Luka doesn’t need an A center because they might not even get playing time in the playoffs and it was better to go for Gafford level players. Now we sign an A center and send out a significant part of our assets and it’s no longer an issue?

I don’t think we have an injury prone players perse. But we don’t have a ton of top line talent, if we lose one of Luka, Kessler and to a lesser extent Reaves for 20-35 games (which isn’t crazy for any of the 3). How well do we go in those games? 50%? Worse? That’s the difference between a 4th/5th seed and the playin.

No one said we weren’t making the playoffs, a handful of us think we’re not a top 4 team in the west. That’s not being negative, no one said we were a bottom barrel team.

It seems you’re taking legitimate concerns and then paraphrasing them as comically bad takes to win an argument by trying to paint the other posters concerns as extreme views.

 

would've preferred him to looney

 

Does anybody have a bball index paid account? - was wondering what Kumiga's defensive grades were. How is he at screen navigation? How about Grimes and Sexton? Probably not switching with Kessler, so we need at least one point-of-attack defemder. On offense, the guy could score at the rim really well, and his three-point shooting seems to be trending upwards. He's been an Herb Jones type of shooter, but he's stil only 23. He just needs to raise his volume a little, last season he shot better than Lebron and was good as Smart in terms of percentage, but half the volume. In terms of rebounding, Kuminga averaged a career high 8.8 total rebounds per 36 mimutes last season and a 13.3% total rebounding %, which are very good for his position.

 

You do what everyone else does - put him on the worst shooter out there and hope for the best, because you'll risk their worst shooter killing you if it means keeping the benefits Kessler gives on the defensive end. We're playing the Spurs? Kessler is playing off of Castle. OKC? He's playing off Hartenstein, Dort or Caruso if they're in there and Chet if they're not. Knicks? Josh Hart is taking 10 threes that game. If those guys make shots, you tip your cap. A lot of times they don't. OKC had like two spike games where their guys rained threes, but the other games Wemby's rim protection was too overwhelming.

I think we exchanged posts about this before, but bigs are typically "played off the floor" because they gum up your offense. I'm just not worried about that when we have two guys who are some of the best in the league at using non-spacing bigs in the P&R game.

 

I'm a bit disencouraged with Kuminga. It seems to be a money issue and it's unfortunate. Maybe we are trying to find a S&T or some salary dump and saving the stretch & waive options as a last resort but by now I'd just get it done. So if we aren't, it may be that we won't.

Would like for him to commit to us. We're selling an insane proposition at this stage of his career. Potentially starting for a top 10 team with one of the best facilitators ever. After he bounced around 2 mid teams as a fringe backup. He can have a career season with us and up his value.

But it seems he doesn't want to commit to a very low salary. It can indeed backfire and then you're hooked to that market value if you don't have an outstanding year. I'd still hope he would bet on himself

As a fan I want this sorted quickly, but being pragmatic it doesn't really matter and the guys who haven't signed yet are waiting for Bron's domino to fall. So there's no actual harm in having patience

Just hoping we get 2 more playable guys before training camp

 

I wonder what kind of salary Kuminga could get from us in a sign-and-trade if we just sent Vando to the Hawks but didn’t clear any additional salary? Maybe Kuminga’s camp is still holding out for more.

I would be fine with giving up the swap to make this happen, especially since a sign-and-trade probably means a longer term deal so we’re not paying an asset for someone who can bolt after one year. I like the idea of filling out the wing and still having all 3 second rounders to trade later.

 

According to Crafted NBA, Ziare Williams spent 21.4% of his time guarding PG's, 27.1% SG's, 26.8 SFs, 14% PF's and 8.8% Centers. Pretty versatile defender. Also great at deflections, in the 82nd percentile, and 90th percentile in raDTOV. 79th percentile in defenive verstility. Had a career high 2.1 steals per 36 minutes. Also shot 34% from 3 on high volume, and he's a very good free thow shooter 85% last seaosn, 82% career. He's not the worst fall back plan at all. The abiilty to defend point guards, get steals and deflections, suggests point of attack dwfense.

 

If you can turn Vando into Kuminga for the cost of a pick swap you have to do it.

 

Yeah, no-brainer. But I could understand if there is hesitation. We already dont control of our 1st the next 5 drafts, swapping 2032 would make it the next 7 drafts, since our 2033 is also going out. So there is no possibility of a rebuilding year any of the next 7 years if we swap it. But then again, but you still have to do it though. Could always swap players for picks too, if we had to reverse course.

 

There has to be more to this right? Either additional pieces being left out from the report, or maybe Kuminga still has an inflated sense of worth. Otherwise, I'll be the first to say it's dumb if the FO turned down this opportunity to get Kuminga while dumping Vando with the cost being a pick swap.

 

Well instead of stretcing Vando and pay him 5.4 mil the next 5 years, you could just give that to Kuminga on top of what ever is true value is, and we would still be better off. If he's worth MLE money, go ahead and pay him 4/80 with a team option. Just look at it as the cost of doing business. I thought we got a good deal for Kessler. Mamu only getting 12 mil, thats not bad. Grimes getting 14m not bad either. Sexton for room ex is a steal.

 

I look at Eason's contract as a good comparison. 5 years $81M for a guy with less offensive potential but far more established defensively. I look at a 3 year deal at $18-20M as a fair compromise. Higher AAV but lower total guaranteed. I think the most likely scenario is that there are other pieces involve that aren't being reported.