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

Luka / Bronny
Smart / Kennard
Giannis / Jake
Lebron / Adou
Turner / Hayes

is a championship roster

 

No doubt

 

I don't think it is.
Turner is a good archetype but he is awful. He had a very bad season with Giannis. He has tools to be a good player but never translates in the court. Kind of like Rui or Ayton.
I hate Luka/Giannis pairing. Giannis still hasn't worked out with another ball handler. He was bad with Dame and good with Jrue. Luka is more Dame than Jrue.
That's an insane short roster (even if you fill up with ring chasers) when every year it has been proved that depth is key for success. Bronny and Thiero can't be the 9th/10th guy. Jake can't be the 7th/8th. Even worse when all but Turner of the starting 5 are injury-risk guys.
We also have only a good shooter in Kennard. All the rest are between bad and average. You need shooters around either Luka or Giannis, even more with both. You also don't have 2-way role players which we need a lot.

It basically addresses close to none of our needs while enhances even more those flaws

Then, we are screwed on the long term. Lose all our picks. Bron is a short rental. Giannis game won't age well. He's been injured the last years, Bucks haven't made the 2nd round in years too. I just don't buy it.
Finally no way AR is traded. It can only happen in a S&T (otherwise we can only trade him in Dec/Jan) and he has to accept going to Milwaukee, a bad city to live in and a franchise that starts a rebuild. He would only do it for the money and that's not him. Don't think you can have a 3-way trade with a S&T.

This summer will define our next 5-7 years. We either choose star hunting or depth. Last years have proven going for depth and defense bring success, so I really hope we follow that path.
We are in a GREAT position to bring 2 to 5 really good role players that fit the team and set us up to fight Shai and Wemby for the years to come

 

agree. we'd have to count on several recent strong trends (both in terms of individual players and team-building strategies) just abruptly reversing for this to work.

 

Meh..that's a rather pessimistic take IMO. Luka is on a whole different planet than Dame. Luka and Giannis would be best duo in the league for the next 4 season at least. Why do you need even more shooters around Luka and Giannis? Nobody can do anything with Luka or Giannis as it is. These guys don't need anyone to set them up, it's the exact opposite, they create the good looks for the role players. Stacking role players don't equate to Superstars, rotating 3 different guys onto Luka or Giannis, doesn't somehow make it an even matchup.
As far as Austin, he said he thought he was originally going to Milwaukee, so I doubt he'd turn down that kind of money.
Injuries are a part of the game..Austin and Luka are done for the playoffs right now, while Giannis is complaining about not playing. Young guys get hurt too, we don't know who will be hurt in the years to come.

Luka's window is right now IMO..I'd go for it.

 

Who had the opportunity to put together a Luka/Giannis combination?

 

the nets when they put durant, irving, and harden together?

 

Coming off of Durant and Kyrie, both missing whole seasons due to major injuries? That's NOT the same thing. If Luka or Giannis were coming off of recent ACL or Achilles injuries, you'd have a point.

 

you mean, like, with luka missing the playoffs and giannis missing a huge chunk of this year and lebron being 41 years old?

very reminiscent of the most recent clippers hindenburg with kawhi/harden/PG (or just kawhi/harden this year, if you prefer).

 

Yeah..well Lebron and Giannis, would have gotten us through the 1st rd, until Luka got back too.

Hell ..weren't you just saying, that it's not a given that Reaves ,can hold up though 82 games and the playoffs?

 

it's not a given. but concentrating big money in few players has been a mistake time after time. giannis is a supermax. reaves is going to make barely more than jrue holiday.

 

Nothing ventured, Nothing gained. Come on now, you really think that Luka would prefer Austin over Giannis? Be serious.

 

I think Luka would prefer a team that can compete for a championship for all his prime

 

Which means Giannis, because Luka's prime is right now. We don't even know, if Austin is a legit Championship caliber 2nd option. Meanwhile Giannis is a MVP caliber player..still in his prime.

You guys get real peculiar with this prime talk, Giannis is 31, if he's past his prime, that means Luka only has 4 years left.

 

No it doesn't. Basketball is a team game and evidence have CONTINUOUSLY shown that 2 or 3 big stars without a good supporting cast DON'T win. We had Bron and AD and only won when we had Caruso, Rondo, KCP, Green, Kuzma, D12, McGee and Morris as supporting cast. Look how long that list is

Gathering stars didn't work for us, Nets twice, Rockets, Philly, Bucks, Clippers, etc.
Then you have the top4 teams this year with 1 superstar (Boston played all year without Tatum) and a lot of good players around. Or you had Indiana in the finals last year.
There's so many examples across the league, it's clear for me at this point after the last decade

 

The man is going to have a nearly $60 mil sized contract next year. Even if we just absorbed Giannis into our cap space and only sent out our '26, '31 and '33 Firsts, his mere presence on the roster guts the team by not only taking up the entirety of our current free cap space, but also past it by around $8-10 million. All while having a ton of empty roster slots to go fill up on vet min contracts and no remaining trade capital left over to make any other kind of roster moves for the foreseeable future.

We do not need Giannis. We shouldn't be even considering or entertaining the idea of pursuing him.

We need to build a genuinely competitive and deep roster, and considering the limited amount of resources we have, that necessity runs directly opposite of any aspirations of acquiring Giannis this summer.

 

prime Luka may have less than 4 years. More reason not to gamble on giannis.

 

No, Giannis isn't past his prime yet, but the drop off is very close for him and the bigger issue for him, apart from his increasing number of injuries per year, is that his game is built around his athleticism- which is one of the first things to go when a player exits their prime. LeBron was able to extend his window of competitive playing in the NBA by developing a reliable shooter and expending less energy on his athleticism as he got older. Other players like Steph, KD and Harden also have reliable shooting to pivot to as they've gotten older.

This is great news for Luka, since so much of his game isn't built around his athleticism and is instead built around his shooting, playmaking and deceleration... and terrible news for Giannis, considering he's never really developed a reliable shooter to fall back on.

That said, as @abeer3 just noted, Luka's prime might be less than 4 years, if only because of the physical wear and tear we are already beginning to see from him. Granted I don't think that we have to worry too much about Luka not being able to compete past his prime, for the reasons I already laid out- his game isn't built around his athleticism. Just look at how Harden's managed to fare past his prime and remember that unlike Harden, Luka is a playoff riser.

 

Gathering stars doesn't work for us? What are you talking about? We are the Los Angeles Lakers dude. That's what we do, chase stars in order to win chips. That's the most nonsensical Lakers fan take ever.

The Warriors had the bash brothers, they took it to the next level and got KD didn't they? How did that turn out? Boston already had a good team nipping at LeBron's heels when he left Cleveland . What did they do...added Jrue, the Unicorn and White.

The only examples that you can come up with, revolves around teams that had injured stars.
Yeah speaking of Indiana, Haliburton goes down and they are in the lottery. If you took SGA, Jokic or Wemby out of the picture, those teams aren't advancing in the playoffs. It's a stars league man, it always has been, nothing has changed. The NBA has the best basketball players in the world. You will always be able to find role players to fit around healthy superstars. This is why we've seen 7 different teams win a Championship in the last 7 seasons.

 

Giannis hasn't fallen off, he was simply injured. Over the last 4 seasons Luka has played in 255 regular season games, to Giannis 242 and Giannis could have played more this season. I think this durability stuff is a bit overblown. Steph, KD and Harden were always shooters in the first place, that's not an accurate contrast. Giannis is a 6'11 freak..it is what it is, there is nobody to compare him to, that's just greatness. He is a unique player and I'm fine with that.