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

showtime24 · Mar 10, 2026 at 7:48 AM

Hurricane Billy said: ↑

Krivas can dunk/catch lobs, but yes, he's definitely more in that IHart and Kessler mold offensively. However he's a bonafide beast defensively as a rim protector, with similar size to Kessler (7'2" height, 7'6" wingspan, 260 lbs) and has the potential to eventually become a floor spacer. Basically the argument for Krivas IMO isn't all that dissimilar to the arguments in favor of us trying to go after Walker Kessler; he's a huge 7ft Big who can catch lobs as needed, but more importantly is a steel wall of rim protection on defense. However IMO Krivas' main advantage over Mara is that he seems more NBA ready than Mara, who'd absolutely be a development project for us for the first year or two due to his conditioning and currently poor shotmaking. With Krivas, I feel like you could plug and play him pretty easily, even if he'd still continue to improve as a player in the league for his first few years.

That said, I wouldn't be mad at all if we walk out of Draft Night having gone with Aday Mara either. Honestly the comp I keep coming back to for Mara is Pau and Marc Gasol. Which makes sense, seeing as how Mara has stated in an interview that Pau was his favorite basketball player to watch in the NBA growing up. I do think Mara would probably "fit in" better with the Lakers than Krivas, if that makes any sense, but I also think Krivas would have a far more immediate impact on the team.

I like Bidunga a lot and I think it'd be silly to argue that he wouldn't be an immediate fit alongside Luka, but ideally I'm hoping he falls into the Second Round and the Lakers just buy into the early Second Round and pick him up there after already getting at least one of the other Bigs (Mara, Krivas or Morez).
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Mara gets 4.6 blocks per 40 minutes, compared to Krivas 2.9 blocks per 40 minutes. Also, Mara shoots 67% from the field, compared to Krivas 59% from the field. Mara is 7-3, 255 and Krivas is 7-2, 260. Mara dunks a lot in the video I saw, while Krivas mostly shoots hook shots and push shots in the post. If you pull up video of Kessler, there will be a montage of dunks. Kessler has a high dunk rate, and catches lobs. Mara is the better prospect, imo.

showtime24 · Mar 10, 2026 at 8:33 AM

The draft might end up being loaded with bigs that fit the profile we need. Cyril is a dunking and shot blocking machine. Same with Thiam. Same with Budenga. Lakers need to scout these guys, but basic counting stat wise, FG% and blocks per game gives an indication of high dunk rate and rim protection, which is what we need. If we could get 2 of 4 of Mara, Cyril, Bidenga, and Thiam. Plus there are more choices too.

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

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