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

I’m not sure this changes much on the Kuminga/ATL front. The Hawks just swapped one wing for another so it doesn’t free up minutes. And from Kuminga’s perspective, you go from competing for minutes with an underwhelming young player to competing with a vet that will probably be a key part of the rotation. If anything, I think it solidifies Kuminga leaving.

I do agree that it could make Washington even more expendable in Dallas as they embrace the rebuild around Flagg.

 

Dude no way Kaminga is back on the Hawks. They just got Dort. He has to sign that contract. Why would he sign that contract? 1 year deal. To come off the bench behind Dort. Mess up his stats scoring less. And then get less money. As opposed to coming here starting balling. It makes no sense. Dyson Daniels or Luka? He’s gonna get great looks here.

it makes too much sense. It’s either us or Cleveland for Kaminga simple as that.

 

f*** Bustinga

 

This makes the Kuminga deal much harder to do now in my opinion.

Atlanta will no longer take players on, so we’d need to dump Vando to a third team which is going to cost picks, while also sending out some draft capital to Atlanta for facilitating a sign and trade.

Also it’s interesting we didn’t get in on this trade for either guy, Dallas could have send PJ for Vando and saved 9m in cap space this season and gotten back three seconds.

We may be up to something totally different, or we may also just be done.

 

Same framework I’ve mentioned for weeks still can work. Jake to third team with a second, a second to atl for facilitating the transfer of bird rights.

 

If we want Kaminga we’ll get him. If we don’t we’ll go with young guys Thiero and Carr.

 

I think Atlanta was never taking Vando. Otherwise the deal was probably done.

I think no team is eating Vando's contract. Which I'm fine with because he will be a nice contract next year to provide a 2nd upgrade after the MLE. Jake, Hardy and Knecht are all expirings this year, so they don't provide that.

Only bad thing is that we will have 13M unplayable to JJ and that's a bad use of assets. But if we get Ziaire and Carr hitting, it balances out.
I do like Vando and think he can still provide a spark of energy that is always useful during a long regular season, especially on road trips and when the team gets tired which always happens for a stretch at some point

 

I don’t think Kuminga is signing for 15m. I really don’t, I think he wants closer to 25m, so maybe we can meet at 20.

To achieve that you’re going to need to send out two out of Hardy, Jake and Dalton. It’s going to be hard to find a team where you dump two players, this late in the offseason. And if you do, you’re probably sending out two seconds to move those guys and another second to Atlanta.

Vando in that instance was easier because it’s a 1 player dump.

 

I don't see why he would get a raise after an underwhelming season(s) and when there's no teams with cap space and few to none with the MLE. If he wants over 20 I'm hanging the phone, go get it big boy.
You need to factor the market and at this point it is very unlikely if not impossible for him to get that amount of money

Vando costs more to dump than each of the other 3 guys because 1) he has an extra year and 2) he is twice or more expensive than each of them

 

He is gunning for it because he turned down 75m for 3 years from Golden State. He has that as an anchoring bias, if he didn’t, he would have went for the MLE to various teams.

We can look at it from our point of view or his team’s. His agent is notorious for asking for too much from teams and getting his guys burnt. It’ll be the same situation now, but they’re still gunning for 25m.

I understand the difficulty of dumping Vando. But it’s also hard to dump two players this late in the offseason, teams don’t have lots of open slots. Maybe someone takes them on for a buyout, but it’s probably more draft capital than we want to send out.

If we use the draft capital this year, it’ll also be hard to dump Vando next offseason. Maybe if someone wants to dump a bad contract for an expiring?

 

Kaminga or develop Thiero and Carr. I could care less about making a trade just to apiece a fan base.

at this point I don’t want to trade our depth. I like our depth. I’m fine adding Kaminga and I’m fine ridding with Thiero and Carr. I’m good.

we have Zaire Williams and Hey depth. Vando Knect LaRavia


Why are yall so quick to trade all of that for Kaminga?

we’ve got house money.

We are young we are athletic and we are balanced. This is the youngest our squad has been in 10 years. Watch out OKC.

we are following their blueprint.

marinate on this Laker fans

Thiero

Carr

Williams

LaRavia

Vando

Knect

that’s all your depth. On the wing.


We add that to Hardy Luka Reaves Bronny Grimes Sexton

how could you not like this depth

Kessler Loney. Mamu

everybody knows their role This is your roster Laker fans celebrate it.

 

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but I wonder if the Lakers are changing their stance on trading for a power forward like Kuminga, because of the emergence of Thiero?

Might be better off with a less expensive place holder type at power forward. Buy I do get Kuminga on a short term deal as a placeholder for Thiero, if we don't break the bank. I mean Vando and the 32 swap would be fine.

Not sure if Lakers would be willing to play Luka more at the defensive 4, but they could do that too. Heck, they might have to anyway.

 

I seriously hope not. We should in no way be penciling in Thiero as the starting PF going forward.

 

@svtzr I’m starting to buy that our offer was closer to that 2/20 with a PO that was discussed. I feel like we must have/had the framework in place waiting for him to say yes. He’s still waiting for Cleveland to maybe pony up. Or someone else maybe. He’d take our 10 per with bird rights over an mle, imo.

 

why I know it’s summer league. But the improvement is obvious.

 

looks like we may be forced into a much better decision if we go get PJ

 

I don’t think this guy is a real reporter.

Some of what he says is accurate, but it’s usually just speculation or out of context aggregation of something another reporter said.

I could be wrong because yeah he has a lot of followers, but yeah I’ve always mentally lumped him into the “ignore or take with a heavy grain of salt” bucket