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

I'm not sure this team is worth sacrificing any future assets for. Just not seeing vibes of a serious playoff caliber team.

 

In Woike's latest newsletter says it is believed that it would cost us a first to move Vando

 

i believe this. he has three years left on his deal and didn't play for basically the entire first year of it. if some other team was offering that to us, would you take it?

this is part of why i don't bother trying to include him in most trade proposals. if we're taking some dead weight back, then maybe it works, but that's not really the mode we're in.

 

zo's expiring, though. you could probably re-up him on a lower salary, year-to-year basis, too. and this may be a situation where the team might take a flier on vando. chicago's weird.

i don't like this. we've done it once already this year (robbing peter to pay paul) and it led to treading water.

relatedly, after trading for DFS, rui doesn't make as much sense on the roster, either. so i'm not too broken up if he has to move to fix a position of need. even if he's a better player than gabe (i'm not entirely sure that's true, either), he's the one i'd rather trade.

yeah, i'll just have to continue to disagree with folks on brown. that big salary requires a lot to get him, and i think it ends up a downgrade. and i also just don't think he's who people think he is.

DFS cost like half as much and actually is a three and D guy with great positional size. i don't see it the same way. i've also never bought the idea that brown is a secondary ballhandler/playmaker. not on a team that wants to win.

 

btw, the longer i think about it, the more sold i am that rui/wood/2025 2nds for vucevic is the right play. i guess any of the vet mins and jhs work instead of wood, too.

vuc
AD
lebron
max
reaves

with DFS, gabe, and vando/knecht as the primary bench players gives the team a lot of options for style of play, imo. would still like a more athletic/dynamic guard option somewhere, too, but they're not easy to come by.

 

yeah, i like rui, too, but i'm just not sure he's a foundational piece. i won't be mad at all if he's still here post-deadline, but it's hard to envision that he's going to be here past the end of his current contract/into the post-lebron years. max and reaves, sure, but rui probably not.

 

Lonzo is tough because the skillset is a nice fit. You could play any combination of Lonzo, AR and Christie together. Playing Lonzo with AR lets AR slide back into more of a scorer/secondary or even tertiary creator role rather than being a full-time PG. Lonzo could either play off the ball if he's playing next to LeBron, or be a primary ballhandler in non-LeBron minutes. Defensively, he had enough quickness to be a pretty good POA guy and enough size to hold up against 2s.

But that's all premised on him eventually regaining his pre-injury form, which he hasn't done yet. That's the whole reason he's available in the first place. It's a tough call IMO.

I'm still anti Vuc or Val but won't keep harping on it. I understand why some want those guys and this team has enough holes that there's room for disagreement on what we should do. I do think Rui is becoming a bit underrated now; a wing with good size that can knock down shots is a good piece to have in your rotation regardless of his inconsistency/shortcomings. I'd be much more comfortable trading Rui for a big if you could guarantee me (1) that we'll be getting the 2023 version of Vando back and he'd stay relatively healthy, and to a lesser extent (2) we'd get the pre-Lakers version of Wood back who could knock down some shots and be a big 4 next to AD or another center. So long as those two guys are question marks, I'm really not sure trading a sometimes frustrating but overall decent wing for a guy like Vuc really makes us better.

 

Speaking of Vuc

 

I like that. For starters, getting any playable guy from JHS/Wood is already a win. I like the kid too and he looked interesting in Sac. A bit worrisome he hasn't balled out in Toronto, especially with Quickley out for so long. But still worth a shot if we are giving nothing back.
Toronto as a lot of guys who could be nice here. Mitchell, Brown and Olynyk. They also have a play-in squad that's been bad this year due to injuries, which is a very good scenario for some trades. Any of Gabe, Vando and Rui make some sense to them, hopefully we get something there.
Gabe is a sort of vet presence in a young squad (Barnes, Quickley, Barrett, Gradey).
Vando and Rui are lengthy forwards that can play off Barnes. They can have a long and strong 5 of Quickley, Barrett, Barnes, Rui and Poeltl. Do it TORONTO!!!

I was like your opinions but not this one.
I remember you had a similar view on DFS before we traded, that he looked washed after Dallas. I think you're making the same mistake by making the same read about Brown: "a guy who's been underwhelming playing in a bad team". JSM did a great read on why he wasn't great in Indiana and Toronto.
But well, time will tell. Really hope we get something going with Toronto, don't think they're expecting picks for any of those 3 guys.

Also down on Rui for Vuc. Since DFS, I've been saying Rui became expendable. Don't love Vuc fit, but he's a better player and there's a chance it works

 

I'm hesitant on any players with bad injuries given how things have worked out with our own injured guys.

 

Rui, Vando, Gabe and JHS works for Mitchell, Brown and Olynyk.

We would have:
Reaves | Mitchell
Brown | Dalton | Milton
DFS | Max | Reddish
Bron | Wood
AD | Olynyk | Hayes

I like the 7-man core of the starting 5 with Max and Olynyk. Plus Davion/Knecht But we do get slim on the wings. But Olynyk can play together with AD and Brown can play some minutes at the 3.
We could try to get Torrey Craig from the Bulls for a vet min.

It's not a huge swing and we are switching Gabe for Mitchell, Rui for Brown and Olynyk for Vando. I think its a net positive gain in the end, especially if we can't count on Vando, that gives us a killer 5 that I think is important in postseason and some more switchability and different rotations

 

Brown was good with the Nets though. I think I commented on here that I thought that was a good pickup by the Nuggets at the time.
I think the hope with him is that a lot of this is rust and he'll get better with more PT.

Agree though on questionable need I don't think he really feels the big 2 needs - C and a scorer. Brown is another one I like more if the first move is to move Gabe.
*caveat* he does have a lot of positional flexibility with his defense at this best so he could be useful even if you move a forward like Vando or Rui

 

I’d love to make a play for BI or Zion, but there’s no way the Pels help us win a ring twice.

 

I'm warming to a BI move - he's got his issue off the ball but he's a guy who reminds of Siakam a few years ago. Value is being eroded by his contract and what he can't do.

He will take a lot of the defensive attention that teams are throwing at Lebron and AR (the detroit playbook is to jam our ballhandlers full court similar to how to a corner press defense). BI will take care of that and the way Lebron and AR have developed together where they are dual playmakers he should thrive in LA.

Ideal scenario would be to make a move for Kessler and a guy like BI and you fill you're biggest needs nad make this team a legit title contender. It's the whole reason to do the DFS trade first - it allows you to fix other holes.

Plus while the Pels did lose AD acrimonously, everyone and their mother thought the Lakers paid the mother load to make the move.

 

my take on DFS was that he wasn't worth the 2 1sts they were asking. maybe the dallas version was. and not that he was washed.

my take on brown is that i've kind of always thought he was overrated. he was a great get at the tpmle for denver, but that's at the tpmle. he makes 25 million and doesn't play well enough to warrant that in salary or in traded salary, imo. i would be different if we had 25 million in dead weight to move, but we don't. our dead weight is pretty much vet mins (which is good!).

btw, i also like olynyk for our needs and rui/jhs (or wood) for olynyk/mitchell works, too. olynyk does some of the things vuc does at a lower cost. i'd be good with this, too, as it attempts to address two needs (POA defender, credible center with strong base).

 

BI kind of went out the door with dlo being traded, though, right? it would take rui/gabe/vando salary to match (even max in vando's spot is short). so you're talking 3 or 4 for 1 trades that might involve a third team to eat salary (for more draft capital on top of what we'd need to get ingram straight up).

i think the dlo trade meant the highest-paid player we'd bring in is under 30 per and closer to 20.

 

It's actually a very interesting move IMO
Trade works straight up for Rui, Vando and Gabe and draft capital for BI.
BI's value seems really low and he's a guy I'd be willing to move some firsts for. He's 27 only so him and Reaves would be good for 5+ years right there.
Lakers really aren't giving that much, Rui's the only decent player there, Vando is a dead man and frankly I think DFS is probably better then both.
Gabe seems pretty replaceable either with a guy like Fultz or if the Lakers qualify for any buy out guys (man JHS being unplayable sucks here)

Why would NO do it: has any team expressed interest in BI? Seems like the market not the Lakers are screwing them here

 

can't see them taking vando's contract given his health struggles.

agree that ingram will probably be had cheap, though. don't see how NO keeps him past the deadline, right? they're capped out even without his salary on the books next year, so they can't risk him just walking. they need to get something back because the mle won't come close to replacing his value.

 

I'm not a fan of BI. He's another ball stopper. We have too many of those guys already. I think it's rediculous that people keep mentioning BI and Kuzma. I really hope we don't go that route.