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

I can't see a scenario where we don't resign Reaves to 35m or above. That's a 15% discount down to 205m over 5 years as opposed to the 240m he could get.

I think thats still valuable for a guy like him, it puts him more in line with very high end role players like OG compared to true max players that are getting in that 55-60m range and still leaves him as a valuable contract if we need to trade him.

I'll see how I feel after this series is over, but I'm generally encouraged after game 1. So much so, that I'm maybe leaning towards being an over the cap team and seeing if we can build over the next 2 offseasons and trade deadlines instead of hoping we just build it all in one go. Something like:

Luka: 49.5
Reaves: 35
Lebron: 20
Rui: 20 (4 year deal with 4th year team option)
Smart: 15.1 (3 year MLE)
Kennard: 13.2 (120% non bird raise)
Vando: 12.4
Ayton: 9.7 (120% non bird raise)
Hayes: 6.5 (2 year deal)
Jake: 6
Knecht: 4.2
Kleber: 2.5
NSJ: 2.5
Bronny: 2.3
Adou: 2.1

That's effectively 201m, which leaves us around 8m below the first apron. It means we can do a trade and take back an extra 7.5m in salary than going out.

We need to look at packaging some form of Vando, Knecht, Jake and NSJ in a trade to improve. In the lowest end, just trading Knecht gets us 11.7m in returning salary where as trading all 4 gets us up to 33m. The most likely is Vando & Knecht going out, which puts us at 24.1m in returning salary. Go get Josh Hart...

Luka / Kennard / Bronny
Reaves / Smart / NSJ
Hart / Adou / Jake
Lebron / Rui
Ayton / Hayes / Kleber

We add a 3&D hustle player in Hart and we bank on developing Adou for that wing role. That's the major additions to this team. Not sure what you guys think a healthy Luka, addition in Hart and a more developed Adou does for our chances against OKC & Spurs next season?

Lots of stuff will happen over the offseason with numerous teams probably blowing things up. So who knows what will happen.

 

i can do such a plan, though i still think 20m is too much for rui (especially on a multi-year deal) and 14 is too much for kennard. knock each of those down a bit and you can raise the amount the vando/knecht/jake package brings back and/or retain some wiggle room.

as for your question...it would depend heavily on what we got back in the vando/knecht trade, as that would be the only addition to the team we played with for most of the year. that needs to be a player who could crack our top 5, imo. preferably one who is two-way with some speed. hard to do, but not impossible. hart probably qualifies (really don't see why the knicks move on from him at this juncture, though). herb jones may qualify (i think NO should move him before his extension kicks in, personally). wiggins may qualify.

does that team beat this okc team? with luka? puncher's chance, but not favored. same with spurs. i think okc will have to get a little weaker over the summer, but SA's bill won't come due until wemby starts getting the big bucks. this is a reason why i was interested in a cap space route, particularly if it could net watson. he's the closest thing to a mcdaniels type addition, which is what we need. but it seems like denver would rather move everyone else, if the reporting is to be believed. so maybe over the cap ends up being the way. but no, i don't think the current team, even with luka, gets past either of those two. probably beats everyone out east, though!

 

Not sure i will want to bring back the same team. I do think in this era being athletic is a must. I dont think this team has enough of that. Lebron will be a year older. Smart will wear down but i like what he can help younger guys with. Dont totally like Luka/Austin back court topped with Luke as 6th man. Just seem a bit redundant with bad non athletic defenders.

 

Under the new CBA teams under the apron can bring back whatever salary they’re trading (up to 27m) + 7.5m. So as long as we are 7.5m below the apron, we’re good.

So at that point, we need to give the salary to our guys otherwise we’re just kind of wasting it. Might as well get our cap holds high enough if we want to do another trade at the deadline. Or we could give some additional money to LeBron.

Truthfully, Kennard should probably be brought back at 10mish. And Rui won’t get more than the MLE. So if we offered that, it’s $7m more we can give Lebron.

Looks like Denver is going to blow things up. Everyone’s on the block apart from the big honey. I assume they’ll reup Watson and try to move Gordon and Murray. It’s a shame Gordon is damaged goods, he’d be a good LeBron replacement for a few years.

 

i'm still fuzzy on the trading rules, but if that's true, then i guess it doesn't matter. i still think if rui's getting 20 per, i'm limiting that to two years, preferably with a team option on year 2, tbh. any raise for kennard would have to be a 1-year. if he wants to take a cut, we can talk multi-year.

if one of the cap space teams shows up with 20+m for rui and we're operating over the cap, i wonder if just using the mle in the open market or as a TE isn't the better route.

 

Operating under the cap is better, if Lebron, Rui, and Smart agree to sign within that 48 million in room. It allows us to ad an additional player with the room exception, plus other benefits.

Lebron, Rui, Smart, Room Exception player > Lebron, Rui, Smart, Kennard

You could sign Kennard with the room exception if you wanted to.

 

So just run it back?

 

i'm still very skeptical of this plan and think it's being influenced by some odd circumstances. need to think about the full season that was, not just this last bit.

 

to me, there needs to be a clear path to contention, with most principal pieces in place by the end of the summer. i don't know that i view running it back as accomplishing that. we need to add talent of a specific variety.

i think the front office knows this, though. i just think some fans are going to potentially be upset with how that plays out. somebody's sacred cow is going out the door, imo.

 

I think it’s fairly clear at this point that we need LeBron to stick around. We could get lucky and Denver actually lets Watson go, and maybe we even sign someone else like Ellis, but if that comes at the expense of LeBron walking we’re not any closer to legitimate contention. LeBron is the 2nd best player on the team, we simply doesn’t have the talent to contend if you’re swapping him out even for a high level role player like Watson. We need to be adding something to a team with LeBron on it. If that means Rui, Kennard, Hayes, even Smart have to go so be it.

 

Probably you.

 

decent chance, lol. but it may not be...

 

not going to rehash, but i still think 3 seasons of an idealized peyton watson is better than one more season of lebron, if that were the choice. of course, it's not, as we could add to the team AND have lebron make less money...

anyway...

yes, rui, kennard, and smart have a lot of big fans on this forum, and i'm almost certain at least one if not more than one of them will be gone next year.

it's possible that the front office agrees with the newfound distaste for reaves, which would make me upset for reasons i stated in the reaves thread.

 

With the under the cap option, Kennard would likely be gone. I would say Lebron, Smart, and Rui are the priorities in that order.

 

No. Its time for Lakers and Lebron to part ways. That wont happen but it should. This was the year to winning it all. I think Luka gunning for MVP and Austin playing for a contract hurt the team down the stretch. I think JJ was to know trying to win meaningless games was to risky and those two needed to put their personal goals on hold. Sacrifices were not met on their end. Just my opinion.

 

Not necessarily. Example under the cap rebuild option:

Free Agency
48-million in cap-room

-Pay Lebron 20-million (Likely about 5 million below his market value)
-Pay Smart 12-million
-Pay Rui 16-million
-Pay Ellis 9.4-million (Room Exception)

Cap Holds

-Pay Hayes 8-million with his bird-rights

Trades

-It would be interesting what we do with Reaves. If we decide to blow it up, Reaves could go out in a sign and trade. There are some teams that could use a heliocentric player, like Reaves. Teams that come to mind off the top of my head are Orlando, Memphis (to replace Ja), Atlanta, Phoenix, Utah, New Orleans. We already have Luka as our focal point, and Lebron as the secondary ball-handler (Kyrie role, if you will). But we are lacking to ancillary pieces. But not just random ancillary players, I'm talking super role players that fit Luka. Possible trades:

-Reaves to Orlando for Suggs and two 2nds
-Reaves Boston for White
-Reaves to Detroit for Duren
-Reaves to Utah for Kessler
-Reaves + 2031 1st + 2033 1st to Cleveland for Mitchell

Reaves could also be renounced, so we could try to get Watson.

-Of-course, we could also consolidate our trash and draft-picks for talent too. That would be ideal. We could look at some options there.

Reaves could also be re-signed with his bird-rights. Probably around 30 million. It's still about 33% higher than the extension that he turned down that started at about 20 million. Also, a descending contract would be nice.

 

yeah I dont think any team with playoff aspirations is going to pay Reaves more than 30mill unless he really pulls his stuff together in this series

we can offer 30 and he may feel slighted and join another team that pays a little more, but the max I definitely don't see.

Undersized/Unathletic scoring guards are not highly rated in the league.

 

i agree with most of what you're saying, but i will continue to remind folks that the second lebron's gone, we'll be searching desperately for a secondary creator as good as reaves, and we probably won't have a path to getting one.

 

absolutely devastating. fire everyone. might as well trade luka.