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

If 3 firsts turns into Wiggins and Ware I might legit riot

 

Why’s that? Would love to hear the downsides.

 

Couldn’t really tell you, but Heat want him and Giannis reportedly likes Miami. They could probabaly resign Norm and take Lu Dort.

Mitchell
Norm / Jovic
Dort / JJJ
Giannis / Fontecchio
Bam

They’d be a great defensive team. Just need another creator. Maybe Kyrie goes there after a year.

 

Looks like iHeart is Wemby’s kryptonite- especially when the refs allow him to hold and foul Victor all night long.
It will be interesting to see if they allow this in San Antonio.

 

5 first rounders?????? For Gianiss who is 31??? With calf injuries. He’s not Wemby and he’s not 25.

Luka at 26 went for what 1st rounder.

They’d get 3 first rounders for him from us that would be solid.

 

I don’t believe any of this s***. The Lakers are going to make a full court press on Peyton. Rob’s a**** on the line.

He’s in the damn building. LeBron can use his power and come here. It happened with AD. Ask Dell Demps. So LeBron can make it happen. I expect him to be a Laker. I ain’t trippin. He can tell Denver I don’t want to come back. Don’t bring me back. I want to go to L. A. Something similar like this happened with Eric Gordon and Phoenix.

Denver better tread lightly.

 

That’s the s*** I’m talking about Hartenstein is a dirty piece of s***. And the refs allow that b******* dirty arm grabbing that Hartenstein does. So Silver when your golden goose breaks his arm and misses the playoffs thank you’re beloved refs.

every championship Wemby doesn’t win that’s a shot at the Lakers. Luka is much better than Castle.

and Fox sprained ankle game time decision and you can’t give it a go in the western conference finals??? Different kind of player.

 

Could anybody imagine Kobe playing like this? I think he would scoff at Shai in a major way if he was still with us.

 

watson is from LA and most of these guys prefer to workout close to home in the offseason. nothingburger

 

I was not among the people calling for Rob's head when he didn't make big moves the last few years, as I kind of understood why. If no big moves are made this off season, I'll be truly pissed. For now, Ill choose not to buy it and expect some big things from Rob this summer. If he doesn't deliver, it's time for him to leave.

 

SGA should be SFA for the Flop(s)

https://twitter.com/houselowlights/status/2057296746892669193?s=46&t=VpASWooOp-c0BfbMzXjnIw

Even AC is sick of it

https://twitter.com/lakeshowyo/status/2057152497693958428?s=46&t=VpASWooOp-c0BfbMzXjnIw

 

I think we need to renounce to make the RFA offer. Because we need the cap space available for the offer. At least Bron and Rui need to be renounced because their cap hold is huge, I think 77 million combined. I think Kennard's is high too

But we can go for Ayo.
In any case, we know this stuff is all done before July 1st. I think we can pressure in the backstage and make it look like we're going to offer for them. I agree with abeer we need to make both teams get weaker

I think it was you bringing up Ware and I'm 100% in. Would absolutely go all in if he becomes available. One of the best fits to Luka and a building piece that solves an issue for a few years. He really doesn't fit with Bam and much less if Giannis joins too, I hope he becomes available this summer, even if Giannis doesn't go there

Let us dream!!!
(You're right ahah)

Same.

Svtzr made a good point there showing that indeed we have the best FAs this summer in general. But we have the picks and cap space to play around, we really need to improve the team one way or the other.

As a bare minimum we need to add at least 2 high caliber starters in the wings and/or center to add to the core rotation.

We got Luka, AR, Bron, Smart, Kennard, Rui and Ayton as the 7 man main rotation.
We need to add at least 1 guy to that and replace 1 of Kennard/Rui/Ayton with a better one. If anyone else of those 7 leaves, we need a replacement too.
That pushes everyone 1 slot down and we have Hayes, Jake and Thiero as the 9-11 guys, as they should be.
Then we have 2 to 3 slots for a vet min/rookie for some gamble hoping it may crack the rotation at some point, in addition to Bronny

So in short is:
All-stars: Luka, AR, Bron
Key role players: Smart, Rui, Kennard, Ayton + 1
Rotation players: Hayes, Jake, Thiero
Gambles/development: Bronny + 3

See each one as slots, if one leaves, it needs to be replaced with a similar/better player.
Like Bron leaves, we need Watson/Ayo/Murphy. Rui goes, we need Herb/Thybulle/Eason.

Anyone that joins needs to bring defense and athleticism as mandatory skills. Shooting and rebounding are important too.

I really don't care if "the market wasn't there" or "it takes 2 teams to trade". It will be Luka's 3rd year, we will never have as much power and options as this summer and we really need to take advantage of it. If Rob can't do it, he needs to give his place to someone else. It may be that a better trade or move can be available in the deadline or next summer but it doesn't matter, we gotta do the best move available now, especially if these big trades like Giannis happens that have domino effects

 

same. i was among the few not flipping out about trading all our firsts for jerami grants and such, but this is the year to make the leap.

if we weren't going to leverage the cap space this year, there were probably several moves we could have made in the past year or two that could have upgraded the team more than just bringing the gang from last year back at a higher price lol.

in past years our options were truly limited. we had no space, few picks, few desirable players, etc. people wanted rob to pull rabbits out of hats. we were desperate, and other teams knew it and held out on us, sort of ridiculously in some cases.

i don't think we're desperate, and i think we have many more paths to improvement than we've had. it's up to the gm who very intentionally put us in the place to capitalize on it, or he's out, imo.

very unpopular opinion incoming, but anxiety about losing rui, kennard, or even smart is not something i really have right now. if they walk, they walk. it will hurt short-term, but i don't see them as building blocks for a contender over the next 3-4 years. you also can't let a 42 year old control your summer strategy when you have a 27 year old superstar in his prime and you STILL haven't begun building a team to his strengths. i could forgive it last summer, but not this one.

 

separately: does it help or hurt miami if wiggins opts out?

one thing i've thought about is would wiggins opt out for a 4/100? like, why should he allow himself to be part of the giannis trade if he can secure a long-term deal with us without us giving up a pick? maybe rui has to walk in that situation, but people wanted to trade rui/gabe/1st+ for him last summer. this summer, you can maybe do it whilst retaining the pick(s).

not to mention that i'm still not sure the market for rui will be what people think, and it's possible he could take a shorter low money deal to retain his bird rights a la kcp.

 

Yes of course, I should have probably worded it better. If our RFA offer sheet gets matched, we have already renounced our own cap holds so we can’t be them back and we are left with neither. It’s a risky proposition.

I was quite confident in the Watson play, all the talk out of Denver was they believed they had a championship team this season. The fact that Gordon couldn’t get healthy was a really bad mark against him and the fact that the team couldn’t compete without him was really a death knell against the current squad. I haven’t seen Jokic so disappointed before in his team. Watson’s injury and strong play probably gives them confidence that he needs to be brought back over Braun, Johnson and even AG.

I was never of the impression that any other RFA would be available.

I like Ayo, but I also think he is being overvalued from his single game where he played like a star. Guys good for sure and I’d love to have him, but he is a sub 20m guy. Not sure if Wolves won’t match anything below that.

I think it’s a good chance that Miami goes in for Giannis. I’m not sure if they’ll win the sweepstakes but they’ll be one of the 3-4 teams with a real chance. If they do, I’d absolutely try to offload our junk for Wiggins and Ware - all 3 firsts if I have too.

Ware is a rim protector, a roll man and shoots the 3. He has motor issues, but he is still young and if his role is 3&D & PNR, I assume he will settle in well. Wiggins provides us another two way player that can defend and hit the three.

In my opinion we need to make a trade for parts in the worse way. And if we operate above the cap, we get access to the full MLE that might net us another good free agent, maybe not Ayo, but maybe Grimes? Or Smart and one of Ellis/Thybulle.

 

Completely agree with all this.

As for the bolded part - this aspect seems to be very often overlooked by many fans. Over the past few trade deadlines, Rob was (perceived as) desperate, and other GMs took advantage of that. I truly believe that this has contributed to the lack of major moves.

Given the current CBA, several other teams will be desperate this summer. Despite a fairly weak free-agent class, the Lakers should have plenty of different options to strengthen their roster, and I actually expect trades to be the main avenue. Everything also points to the fact that they’ve been preparing for this very moment for quite some time. I choose to believe that Rob and whoever else is involved in this process will make some really good moves, and we’ll start the next season with a significantly revamped roster.

 

From our point of view, if he was to opt out and we used cap space to resign him, we’d lose the MLE and settle for the room. Maybe he would accept 4 years 90m and have a starting salary at 22?

Luka (49.5) / x / Bronny (2.3)
Reaves (20.9) x / Knecht (4.2)
Wiggins (22) / Adou (2.1) / Jake (6)
Lebron (18) / Rui (15) / Vando (12.4)
Ayton (8.1) / Hayes (4.5) / x

At this point we’d be at 165m and out of cap space so you get your vet mins, you sign Smart to the room, you make a trade and then you resign Reaves to whatever is left to get him as close to the max as you can.

If Ware was being traded, you could send Knecht plus 2 firsts to the Bucks for him. Heck you could even send Ayton, Knecht and Vando to the bucks for Ware and Turner. We could play with twin towers that both shoot 3’s and defend the rim against OKC and the Spurs.

Luka (32) / Reaves (16)
Smart (22) / Reaves (16) / Bronny (10)
Lebron (10) / Wiggins (28) / Adou (10)
Turner (12) / Lebron (18) / Rui (18)
Ware (26) / Turner (14) / Hayes (8)

Slick would be happy with all the bigs at the very least. We’re lacking speed on the perimeter though.