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

That Europe us League is the dumbest idea. That maverick and Jokigs agent were meeting about is all Mavericks idea. He talked about this. Funny thing guy who didn’t make the league wants to compete against it.


Sounds like leverage in collective bargaining. Yeah great idea go against the league that’s made you players billions and billions of dollars combined. It’s a players league. With a new T.V. Deal. Why would you mess that up?

player equity in the league. f*** that I want to own an NBA team. Players should strive for being Jordan.


This sounds dumb. How you gonna pay the players? Every player would go to the NBA. There would be one Brandon Jennings but then every player would go to the NBA.

I think Jokic is more interested in buying horses.

 

Marcus Smart should start, right? We have been looking for this type of player to put between Luka and AR. Now that we have that player, why would we just use him as a backup point guard? Various Laker fan outlets seem to continue to suggest Rui will be the starter.

 

yeah, maybe it's a contract thing with rui or something--like they don't want to demote him before giving him a chance as a starter in a contract year.

i also prefer to set a tone with smart in the starting lineup.

 

Yeah, but who is our point-of-attack defender. You want this player to be a starter, right? I do get, that POA defender i guess becoems less of a priority when you are switching, but it they made it sound like they were really trying to get someone for that role (i.e. Wiggins, KCP rumours, etc.). So now that we were lucky enough to pick up one via buyout, Smart is not good enough to start anymore? If we traded for him, I'm sure we would have been talking about him as a starter. I mean the guy is only gonna be 31 for the season, he's not that old.

 

I hear you. Rui seems like he would be a super nice guy, and he is better for offensive spacing/harmony in the starting unit. But two things about that:

• You can't have him in there with Luka and Reaves. Even with an in-shape Luka, and switching scheme it's probably not advisable on the defensive end.
• In order to maximize Rui as a floor-spacer, he is still not a high enough volume three-point shooter.

Now, form an optimism standpoint, hopefully Rui will significantly increase his volume, being in a contract year.

 

Especially if he has an injury history. Spread the body stress out.

 

Yeah that was the impression I got from what he said, though further reading seemed maybe like he was enjoying it a bit (maybe not) that the Lakers were being dissed over it since it wasn't his team.

 

In regular season the game is very different. We can switch heavy and roll with last year group + Ayton. You don't need that many schemes and specific roles, JJ himself said the trick is just to play hard. I'll keep saying this all summer, we were top5 in the regular after Luka got here. With Hayes starting. We will start the season swinging with our main group and carry from there.
I think Smart will be the closer and start by the end of the year when you prepare your playoff rotation and start narrow down your rotation.

Btw, saw that ESPN has us with 10th higher odds to win the championship. Clippers and Warriors ahead of us lol I really think we are being severely underrated, even in this board. We have Luka, Bron, strong 4 to 5 role players and a great coach. Luka is top3 in the league. I think we are only behind OKC this year

 

if we're assuming equal health across the board, i'm not sure how you can pick gs or the clips ahead of us. hell, gs hasn't even made their summer moves yet; they're just assuming they'll be good!

 

Yeah SERIOUSLY it's a joke IMO with the negativity toward this year's squad wherever it's coming from ... elsewhere or here. All because DFS with a rehabbing ankle for who knows how long is no longer here, when LaRavia looks for all intents and purposes as a player on the rise who quite likely will be better (all around) than what Dorian was last year, plus the other upgrades that are serious AND Luka Doncic turning back the clock 4 years on a freaking mission, with like 7-8 players in prove it contract years.

 

i think it's the quick playoff exit. the clips took denver to 7 and gs won a round. but we had injuries, and they didn't.

 

Absolutely. The playoffs highly influence the perception of teams. Wrongly imo, because it's a totally different game.
It's all about matchups and it's a possession game. Each team tries to find a mismatch and schemes specifically to take advantage of other team flaws. And it's also a lot of times defined by a shot in the final minute that either goes in or out.

The 2 years we got kicked out by Denver, I really believe we get a WCF in at least one of the years. And if Denver gets eliminated we could even get to the Finals. We got swept with a total difference of 24 points and a couple of clutch Murray shots. It is what it is, not crying about it, just saying that using that to define an overall team quality is flawed, imo. And absolutely not reflective of the team ability to win games in the regular season.

I think we will ton of regular season games next year with this group. But I think we are still short for a long playoff run. But to not consider us a top5 team at least is crazy. People forget how good Luka is

 

i think the west is too tough to win a bunch of games. i think we'll win 50 unless something weird happens. then, as you said, we'll see how health and matchups go. there's not a team we can't possibly beat right now, imo. there are also like, 8 teams that can beat us, too.

 

I don't know what to think about the Warriors. I think last season might've been their last chance. Sure Horford and Melton will help, but their offense has gotten pretty stale IMO. All Jimmy does anymore is bait for fouls. Steph is still awesome but has lost a step. Those are really the only guys you worry about on offensive. They have a lot riding on Podziemski becoming an 18-20ppg guy and I'm not sure it's there.

I've complimented the Clips not because I think they're a contender or anything, but because they keep churning out these pretty good regular seasons. I thought they were stuck and toast like three years ago but they keep managing to switch out players and be a 45-50ish win team. I actually think we're a bad matchup for them. They're a slower, more deliberate team and not well equipped to exploit our lacking footspeed. Plus Luka f***ing hates them and loves to try and embarrass them.

Dallas is a complete wildcard. I could see them winning like 52 games and I could also see the pieces just not fitting at all and them being in the bottom half of the play in. I don't think the Spurs are going to approach 50 yet, but I think they'll be a little over .500.

 

warriors are us if we didn't do the luka trade. still can scare you, but i don't trust steph to make it four rounds, and they can't do anything without him at near mvp levels. i don't think jimmy really changed that, tbh.

they've got nothing for luka, and like the above, the playoffs start and their offense is iso kawhi, all day. he can't carry it all anymore.

yeah, both those teams are hard to predict for me. minny is, too, tbh. they were pretty meh until they showed up huge against us in the first round and then rolled over a banged up gs. i could see them underwhelming in the regular season again.

i think okc, houston, and denver will be the top 3. they have depth, and okc and denver have very durable superstars, while houston has an egalitarian system that was the 2 seed last year without a durant type.

lal/lac/min/dal/sas is a complete tossup for me. i like us in a playoff series because we employ luka and they don't, though.

 

I think we’re at the top of the contenders list personally.

Houston gets a lot of praise. But I’m still unsure whether Durant will push them into that upper echelon. Sengun, Thompson and Smith can’t space their starting lineup. FVV isn’t really a great shooter, and is it up to him to do all the play making? In the playoffs do they just revert to KD iso?

I’m just really not sure they’re it yet. I would say they’re being overrated.

Likewise I think Denver are being underrated with their offseason moves. They’ve got a legit POA defender back in Bruce and added big man depth behind Jokic as well as Hardaway Jr. for a team that needed some extra depth in the non Jokic minutes, this has been a huge boost.

Clippers will be a decent regular season team, but Kawhi can’t survive 50 games and a physical playoff series. They’re toast, they just won’t admit it yet.

GSW don’t have the health either. And their offseason hasn’t started yet.

OKC should see more internal improvement but I think we match up well with them.

For me, it’s us, OKC and Denver as the top of the west (come playoff time), Houston and the clippers will be good regular season teams and Golden State will probably pick one team off in the playoffs before they lose steam.

 

I agree overall but the lakers don't seem like a complete team yet. The guard and backup center still seem weak.

I think hayes is a decent regular minutes eater in the playoffs - worth a roster spot but he got played off the court in the playoffs. Maxi is old and hasn't been healthy in years.

You got Smart and AR now which is a good starting point but then after that - bronny?, gabe?, knect?. Non-Lakers fans are looking at that and are happy they dont have that bench guard rotation on their team.

It's amazing how much the Miami version of Gabe would fix on this team - they do need a guard who can create offense like McConnel type and at this point in his career Smart is a not a guy you want on quick PG's either.

 

Guess some in here are going to try and trade away Austin as long as he’s a Laker.
I’m never going to understand this- especially since LeBron will be gone after this season.