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

I’m not sure if we will keep him but yeah. This is valid and it’s clear we’re listening to Luka (rightfully so) as they have history.

 

Yahoo columnist Tom Haberstroh, one of the top analytical writers of the past 15 years, pointed out that the C Bags are 36-6 over the past three seasons in games in which Brown doesn't play.

It is the most basic of stats among a swath of more advanced ones that support the C Bags' decision to move on from Brown -- not because Brown isn't a good player, but because he isn't a valuable one at his $57 million salary, especially contrasted, for example, with teammate Payton Pritchard's $7 million salary.

Still, some league insiders remain flummoxed.

"The league is overrun with strategy," an Eastern Conference scout said. "Honestly, I'm not sure how many people who work in the league are actually watching the games."
Yep
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...-los-angeles-lakers-big-money-bigs-salary-cap

 

hardy move only makes sense if at least two more are coming.

one second rounder goes with laravia to atlanta, the other with knecht to team TBD, kuminga here for 17.5, nick richards vet min as backup center. just keep vando for now as insurance for the forward spot.

kessler/richards
kuminga/mamu/vando
luka/thiero
reaves/hardy/carr
grimes/sexton

i know ayton as backup center was a risk due to his ideas of his game not matching the actual product, but we went from having a very strong 48 minutes of center to me being a bit worried about it with this move.

those seconds better bear fruit.

 

There's definitely at least one more.

I'd dump Vando and DK + as many seconds as it takes on the Nets for space (3 2nds=1 first, two of them being Wiz picks might elevate that value a bit). If you can get that done with two seconds, then do a 2nd & a 2nd round swap for Kuminga. They can decide whether it'll take Jake to get it done or if JK is OK taking a salary = the trade exception the Nets trade would create.

Then you to sign a minimum big.

Then you get the best minimum wing you can.

My preference would be to hold on to Jake and Hardy until the deadline and then flip them for something. Call the Clipps in Feb and see what else would be needed to do an expirings swap to get DJJ.

 

do the nets even have enough space for vando? and i'm not sure anyone's eating contracts longer than one year these days.

whatever it is, we need to outmaneuver cleveland, milwaukee, or whomever else is in this chase, because we're now down both backup center and starting forward.

edit: just realized that you could stretch waive dalton (4m/3 years, creates 3 million), hardy (pick up option 12m/5 years, creates another 3 million), and vando (24m/5 years, creates 7 million). that gets you to 13m for kuminga in space--you'd still want atl to s&t into it for bird rights purposes, i believe.

yeah, that option sucks, as you're basically paying the tpmle in dead money for five years.

still think splitting jake and knecht into two different teams (one of them being atl) along with the seconds and getting kuminga at 17 is the way.

keep vando; he's expiring after next year and is fun to have around.

 

Where's this guy ??
Maybe Lakers could bring him back
Drew Timme