2024-25 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

this was always the danger of any dlo trade. for a lot of his career, lebron has wanted his teams to get pgs, and for a lot of his career, AD has wanted his team to get centers. both guys' teams have seemed interested in not doing that because they felt those two are better in those roles.

at this point, i'm not sure where exactly to turn to replace dlo's ballhandling and playmaking. i don't think sexton is the answer (he can do it, but he's really a ballhandling sg), but he's the only guy out there right now.

rui/jhs/wood for sexton/kessler still works, salary wise and frees up a roster spot. just don't know how much blood danny would want to extract and whether finishing 7th instead of 9th is worth that at this point.

 

welcome to the site!

i think offensively, vuc is really talented and does everything we would want in a center, including passing. his defense isn't as bad as people say, imo, but we'd take a hit there. his game also doesn't suit jj's preferred defensive schemes, it seems. though i'd argue that jj maybe needs to shift his thinking there (we can't switch that much; teams know how to punish that when you've got weak links).

it will be interesting to look back after all the dust settles and see where our priorities were heading up to the trade deadline this year. i feel like there are plenty of centers on the market within our price range, but we haven't moved on any. is that negotiating tactics or is it because we don't think it's a primary need?

 

I just don't see much value in a center that can fit okay next to AD sure, but is a poor option to man the 5 while AD is on the bench. You're just asking for those groups to be atrocious defensively with our already lacking perimeter defenders.

 

who's atrocious defensively? valanciunas or vucevic probably works as well or better in non-AD minutes than any of our current center options (hayes, koloko, lebron, rui, dfs) on the defensive end. and they're leagues better offensively than hayes or koloko.

i think the narrative that you can't defend with lumbering centers is false. plenty of teams make it work. and you're right--you do it by having good team defenders at the other spots.

if AD sat and you ran

vuc or jv/DFS/lebron/reaves/vando or max, i think that's a credible defensive unit.

you could also sub gabe in for reaves or max/vando and still be solid enough, imo.

 

Vucevic provided 22 points (10-16 FG, 1-2 3Pt, 1-2 FT), 15 rebounds, two assists, one block and one steal across 35 minutes during Tuesday's 119-113 loss to the Pelicans.

It was the 25th double-double of the season for the veteran center, tying him for sixth in the NBA
Over his last 14 games he's averaging 18.9 points, 11.0 boards, 3.4 assists and 1.7 threes.
He's averaging 20 points and 11 rebounds this season
And he barely misses game due to injuries which is huge in load management b*******
Just do it, Rob
What is wrong with you

 

I just think folks are so used to the, "Surround Lebron with shooters," and "let AD handle the big man stuff". Mode of operation, that's it's a bit hard to imagine us playing in a different manner.

If we made the right moves, it would almost seem like an entirely different team. Some guys would just be deployed in a different way. We would would be able to present a lot of different looks, to opposing teams, that they hadn't seen from us either. That’s an edge in the playoffs.

 

Fair point, but Gabe was the starting point guard, on a Finals team too. I'd rather not trade him. The trades I think about, leaves us with 1 open roster spot. Rob is actually very good at snagging talent on the cheap. I think he'd come up with another guard if we needed it.

 

I agree with this post, but think that Reaves/Christie/LeBron/AD/Kessler w Sexton/Knecht/Vando/DFS/Rui is better than a 7 seed. Arguably as good as a top 2-5 seed, and possibly the 2nd best team in the West in the playoffs, due to the best frontcourt defense in the league and top defense overall. The O & D lineup switches at the end of games would be great.

All D lineup: Christie/Vando/DFS/AD/Kessler

All O lineup: Reaves/Sexton/Rui/LeBron/AD

 

So Lakers will play back to back right after All Star weekend

 

As good a time as any to play b2b if you have to. And they took away a different b2b to make up for it. That was a weird one, play Utah b2b twice, first at home, then go to Utah the next day. Not sure why they ever scheduled it that way if they could just move it like they did to have a day of rest in between.

Clippers, however, did get a b2b added to their schedule due to this.

 

Richards to the Suns for 2 SRP. This is just stupid. WHY THE F aren't we offering the same? F absurd, I'm pissed

 

Vucevic will go to GSW, Valancunas for example to Houston and Rob still would wait when or if Vando and Wood will be ready to play

 

i guess okogie was fully non-guaranteed, so that's an expiring and three seconds, which is more than we could offer unless we wanted to throw a first.

phx might have done what we did to memphis.

btw, the universe keeps doing them favors. tyus jones shaking free in free agency was a gift, and richards being available for seconds when they had s*** else to offer is also a stroke of luck. richards is on a very team-friendly deal, too.

 

Is Nurkic available now ?
Get him he's not expensive and way better than Koloko and Hayes combined

 

We couldn't compete for that Richards trade. Just don't have equal value for that. Only negative for Charlotte is they took back more salary. Other than that, a solid trade for them. So the market kind of set for a backup center. We could try and see if we could get DayRon for JHS/Wood and 25 2nd, 25 Clippers 2nd or something like that. I think we need to get creative manufacturing more draft assets to use in trade. Example would be removing the protection from the Utah pick in exchange for three 2nds or one of their low first, like the Cavs or Wolves 2025 one.

 

Yeah, we would have to send 2 expirings but not sure that would be a problem for Charlotte, they're taking +3.2 million in this deal

https://x.com/EricPincus/status/1879671074205659411?t=uo5pqsRm6r9YXGdVO2-u6w&s=19

Ok I'm calm now, this makes sense

 

Sharpe only makes 4M why should we send out Wood and JHS? I'd rather send out Jalen and keep Wood. We have Bird rights on Wood next season.