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

Durant is 37 at the start of the season, one injury and his career is over. Knecht & Hachimura both have lots of tread on those tires, at least another 6-7 years, both are snipers and they also get a first. They're also getting off a contract in Wiggins while retaining bird rights for the two young guys they can resign if they land a big fish in 26.

Imagine:

PG / Backup
Knecht / Jovic
Rui / Jacquez
Giannis / Anderson
Bam / Backup

If they land Giannis with a package centered around Herro & Robinson for salary matching plus our 31' 1st, and their 28, 30 and 32 draft picks, they're just a decent PG pickup away from being at the top of the East.

If I was them, that's not a bad package.

 

You know what I’d prefer, trying to keep Rui in the wiggins trade. Not sure how it happens, it would have to be: Knecht, Shake, Kleber and Gabe.

Let’s just lean into:

Luka
Wiggins
DFS
Lebron
Rui

 

Wiggins fit is nice with us. He slots better than Rui so it would improve us. But they are on a similar level. Wouldn't pay extra for it.
Miami wants to compete now, East is open and they won't trade for the sake of it. I don't see us upgrading them with our assets, so it's either a 3 team or I don't see it happening.

Ware is completely off I imagine. They wouldn't consider it for Durant, so it's pointless. Maybe if AR was in the mix, but Herro/AR is not a great combo and I wouldn't trade AR for anything Miami can give us either way.

 

That's not going to work against all these teams in the West, with decent bigs. We are still going to get bounced early in the playoffs. We need to get a couple of quality bigs IMO. Everybody is stacking bigs but us, I just don't see us winning 3 playoff series, by leaning into small ball. Lebron is still your best rebounder in this group and he's 40.

 

I’d prefer a center, but it’s not looking like there is a ton of options right now. And I’m not in the trade for Ayton camp. So it’s Capela for the TPMLE or bust?

 

Starting center is really Capela or Brook. Otherwise, only by trade. Then Richards, Sims, Landale or Reed can be nice backups we can have

 

Never stop King'ing

 

We are going have to trade somebody. Look..we've lost 3 straight playoff series with the Reaves, Hachimura and Vanderbilt trio. We've only won 2 games in the process. Maybe that trio isn't going to get it done? Trying to improve around the margins, in order to keep that trio intact, might not ever work.
I love all 3 of those kids, but they might not be the best fit for our team. That's not knocking them individually at all.

The superstars show up, but they are also showing up for the opposition. We are getting beat, because their role players, are being more productive in their roles. It's not just about individual stats either. Our guys can put up some stats, but in the process of putting up those stats, their deficiencies are causing other issues.

What we were trying to do around AD is one thing, but Im not sure the same concept should be applied to Luka. We gotta switch up some things moving forward IMO. Unfortunately, that is going to require moving something we value, for something else of value.

 

We are going to make trades but I do think center wise we will be looking for scraps again. You can make it work enough to truly compete, but it is truly unfortunate how Rob has backed us into such a corner of desperation at the position.

 

i see this narrative popping up again, and i want to provide a rebuttal.

AD is a center. i know he doesn't think so, but he is. and when his jumpshot left him, he sort of had to be there. he's also slowed a bit laterally and can't switch onto guards as well as he used to, so he's a center. we had one of the best centers in the league until we traded him for one of the best overall players in the league, leaving us with a gaping hole at center.

beyond that, i was as mad as anyone that after the marc gasol/trez year, we just went whole hog no centers except AD, but recall that was also the russ trade year. and unless your center is jokic, it's very hard to have one and play russ. plus, we squandered all assets on russ. so no centers (except AD, who's a center).

it was then a year and a half of trying desperately to get off russ for literally anything, so beggars couldn't be choosers. we went to the conference finals with AD at center and basically no other center.

it wasn't until the following year that AD turned up the heat and demanded a center. i felt like rob tried to get one, but the asks were ridiculous. and i think they still are.

i think a center will shake loose; i'm just not sure it's going to happen this summer. if it does, great. if not, we're going to have to try to win with smallball, which works pretty well in the regular season. we can once again be dealing in a position of strength at the deadline with expirings, picks, and (hopefully) a top-4 record in the conference (hence no desperation).

these teams hoarding 3 and 4 centers and demanding a king's ransom will have given up hope by then and be facing some of those guys just walking in FA, etc.

tl;dr: i'm not convinced we've had a good path to a good center in a long time. if getting one means losing valuable perimeter players, we'll end up having to try to plug that hole without any resources to do so (remember when "big wing" was the only item on the wish list?). patience is a virtue.

i like it. everyone freezing you out on centers, go improve some other way. as long as it's improvement, i'm fine. this is why i've been harping on the "center or bust" offseason stuff. position of weakness. operate from a position of strength or wait to operate.

 

We are going to trade for a wing and give up assets but not address the center position aren’t we?

 

i don't think we are, but this would indeed be...not great.

but i can also devil's advocate this a bit: you can't give up assets you don't have. teams are asking for extra firsts, etc. in part because we have them. if we've made an internal "budget" for a center upgrade, maybe we trade everything but what we feel like is fair there and wait for the market to cool to that level.

 

Is Capela an FA?

would they try and do a sign and trade for him?

 

yes. and my fear is that they'll do a S&T for him elsewhere. what we want is atlanta to move on completely. they have okongwu and porzingis now, so that seems likely. and they're pursuing NAW with their TE (i think). that doesn't leave a lot of room to S&T capela.

the reason i don't want capela S&T'd is we can't do that unless lebron takes a sizable cut or we let DFS walk.

we want capela at the tpmle. one year, guarantee him the starting spot and 25-30mpg with a chance to showcase for one more payday. we keep the rest of our assets and go to battle.

 

Meh..there you go, being Rob's defense attorney again. While also continuing to determine, that AD doesn't know what's best for him, because some analytics say blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile AD kept saying, f*** them analytics, I know what I need.

I think we fell in love with the bubble team for the wrong reasons. Yeah AD was dominant, but two things on that. 1. We had two bigs that did bigman stuff. Rebounding and paint protection, as a compliment to AD. 2. 3 of the 4 teams we played in the bubble, preferred to play small ball. AD is the best small ball 5 in the game.

So we come out of the bubble, with this brilliant idea, AD is our 5 moving forward! That was a mistake, and we never tried to correct it. We simply chased more guards and wings, so that we could keep AD at 5.

You keep pointing to the Westbrook trade, claiming that killed something. Yet you conveniently keep overlooking a couple of things. 1. We shopped KCP and Kuz constantly, during the entire season before, and Rob was going to trade Trez and Kuz for Buddy Hield anyway .
2. We were already over the cap, and Rob had just let his starting PG(That he gave up a 1st rd pick for) walk for nothing. We still needed a PG. There were multiple PG on the FA market that summer, but we couldn't sign any of them through a S&T. So he traded for one.

For all the Westbrook didn't fit, we set the franchise back for decade, nobody is going to take on, that terrible contract jazz, that you were spouting. We still flipped Russ, and got to the Conference Finals. Keeping the philosophy that AD is all the center we need. Then we ran into a team with size, and got swept.

Oh..we just need a full training camp together! That was the sentiment around here. We ran right back out there with basically the same crew, and this time got bounced in the 1st rd, winning 1 game. Hell...it's the coach!!! So we get another coach, and run back with the exact same idea. AD is all the 5 we need, a vet min backup should be enough. We trade AD, for a generational talent. Then we get bounced in the 1st rd again, by a team with size!

Now..We are once again looking for wings, willing to give up assets for wings too. The question is, is more wings what we really need? No..we need size, because everyone has some quality size now, but us.

The vision was flawed from the jump IMO. Rob is going to have to adjust or we need someone else with a different vision. Bigs are on the market, we have to make an offer,and they might include giving up something we value. It is what it is, but we didn’t just casually stroll into this situation at all.

 

Exactly

 

there you go, not refuting any of the points again.

and shaq thought he should handle the ball more.

bubble team was defense-first. going to russ killed all that as much as abandoning centers did.

we'd still have kcp, who, along with caruso and bradley, made our perimeter defense good enough that we could play slower centers next to AD. instead, we flushed two of those (bradley just fell off anyway) for your golden boy.

uh, we offered schroder a huge extension, and he turned it down. what were we supposed to do, force him to sign it?

1. why have you shifted to talking about pgs?
2. we lost because our perimeter guys couldn't make shots. denver didn't kill us inside. their guys made jumpers and we missed ours. minny killed us inside. after we moved AD and didn't find size in the scramble thereafter.

we've made offers. teams have asked for unreasonable things. we're getting jerami grant-ed again. it was dumb last year, and it would be dumb this year if we capitulate.

 

With AR that is a significant improvement over last year's team.

Still need to fix the center hole

 

Rob literally traded for a center 1 week after getting Luka. So I don't see why people are panicking.

I also prefer not to waste assets on Ayton, Williams or wtv center that doesn't fit our group or have big red flags