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

Posturing aside..the Pacers are going to have to pony up and pay Myles Turner, or he won't be coming back next season.

 

i read this piece and felt like it said not much. i mean, yes of course we'd like to get better now. it's not like there's a store that you can just take your 2 first rounders to and get what you need. teams have to be willing to part with the players you need!

and they have his bird rights, and they don't have another center, and there aren't many teams with cap space.

VERY early 2025 NBA cap space projections: 1. Brooklyn Nets: $49.5M | 2. Houston Rockets: $30.6M | 3. Washington Wizards: $25.2M | 4. Utah Jazz: $23.9M (w/o Markkanen) | 5. San Antonio Spurs: $23.2M | Despite the 10% cap jump, that's it. A lot can and will change over the next year.

teams that can pay him have young centers. they're in the driver's seat, they're winning, they like him.

all this said, i'd really like to just move for vucevic. i feel like that should satisfy lebron and AD. there are ways to make it a fake first to save face for chicago, right?

 

TBH I don't think anybody, is going to offer 2 FRP for Turner, or an unprotected FRP for Vucevic. As for as team's cap space, it's hard to say who's going to have what, until after the trade deadline. Guys can get moved for expiring contracts, and some players might get bought out.

Indiana has had Turner's Bird rights, since they drafted him. It's still going to come down to whether they intend to match the numbers he's looking for. At this point I'm pretty sure, they know exactly what those numbers are. A deal hasn't been reached to date. If they don't trade him, they lose some leverage, because now he has a choice. Of course they can just play it out and match any offer he gets. It's still going to be his choice, not theirs.

That article just points out, what I was saying yesterday. It's about time for Rob to either go for it, or lay out his rebuild strategy. He's been talking about sparing no expenses, getting a stretch big, looking for moves that keep us in contention, for a couple of seasons now. If we don't advance in the playoffs this season, that's 3 seasons straight with a healthy Lebron and AD. You can't keep blaming the coach, if you didn't make any moves. The arrow starts to being pointed, directly at him. We have assets,what is he going to with them?

Besides..obviously every big name player in the NBA, is going to be watching, how we move this season. If you are unwilling to go for it, when you know Lebron is about to retire, and AD is still in his prime. Why in the hell would they leave their current team, which will be able to pay them the most money, in order to come to the Lakers? Hell AD might not even be here by then. I'm cool with Vucevic, I would prefer Turner, I really wouldn't be all that excited about Kessler tbh. I'm not sure he's a future All Star, or if his ceiling is basically another Zubac. I wouldn't give up 2 FRP for Zubac either.

 

Ummm Knecht + a first for Mathurin? I'd definitely try to pick him up if he's available.

 

For sure. That guy is so dang athletic. Mathurin is also one year younger than Knecht.

 

DK is the type of player Indiana would want.

 

yes, the cap space landscape can change. but not dramatically. a gain somewhere is a loss somewhere else. turner's not going to be fielding 30 per offers outside of indy, who's not offering that now. much like last time, this is his agent trying to pressure indy a bit, and it worked last time, as they gave him an extension.

anyway, he's not really on the market. again, you say nobody's offering 2 1sts for him--and you're probably right. also, indy doesn't want two future firsts for him. he's their starting center and they're 10-2 in their last 12 games, man. if they move him for our 2 1sts, THEY LOSE! not happening.

unless he's a schroder-level d******--which he's proven not be, and my niece who knows him says he's not, btw--he's not taking a huge cut just to chart his course or whatever. they know nobody's got the cash to really scare them; he knows it, too. they'll figure it out. if he's moved, indy's getting a center back, though, guaranteed.

go for what? what is available for our assets right now? why do i have to keep asking this?!

the stars available:

fox (we're out, for several reasons)

ingram (nobody wants, we don't have easy salary match)

lavine (ditto)

jimmy butler (basically impossible)

btw, a lot of this is impossible because rob made a (good) trade that everyone wanted but limited our trade flexibility.

optimize them like he has pretty much every time except the westbrook trade?

players will also watch if we're a lotto team for nearly a decade again (this time minus the picks cuz we had to get a 6th man to finish 7th). players like the illustrious greg monroe, who took the pistons (or was it the bucks...who cares?!) offer over ours because we were f***ing losers at the time.

lebron came here and got a ring after everyone said he wouldn't. EVERYONE SAID HE WOULDN'T. can't stress it enough. got a ring. AD left the small market to join lebron HERE and got the ring. all of this under the current regime.

my very bad news is that i think AD will be gone before the next star gets here. and that's not bad. we'll send him where he wants when lebron retires, and the future lakers stars will see that, too.

everyone but you would. but your boy magic gave him up for f***ing mike muscala.

 

Yeah, I've never bought into the idea of a post-LeBron era lead by AD. It's a singular LeBron and AD timeline. Only way I see it is if Luka specifically starts making noise about leaving in summer 2026 and coming here specifically.

 

Moving backwards....

Nah..No team in the league is giving up 2 FRP for Zubac man. He's having a good year, but he's about at his peak right now. If Magic hadn't traded him, Rob would have by now. I'll take the Championship in hand, over the hypothetical, what we might have done, if Zubac was still here.

I don't know what you are talking about, with this lottery bound stuff either. This team doesn't need a superstar right now, we need another solid starter at 5. I don't think that we have to give up, some kind of King's ransom to get one either.

Lebron has another season left, we can contend next season too, if we made the right move. Vucevic or Turner is enough IMO..I wouldn't say they are the only moves that could be made either. It depends on the players in question. I like those two guys, I'd have to see the deal on the other options, might work too.

Rob hasn't optimized s***, the mediocre moves outnumber the good ones. Lebron fell into our lap, AD was gift wrapped by Lebron and Rich Paul. Austin fell into our lap, he could have chosen to get drafted. Hell Washington basically gave us Rui for nothing. What great moves does Rob have, to hang his hat on exactly?

We are going to find out soon about Turner, I'll say it again, if he gets to the summer unsigned, I don't expect him to be back in Indiana. The Pacers don't even want to be a 1st apron team, paying Turner over 25, with Siakam and Haliburton already in the 40's? I think they're going to look, to keeping that money for some of those younger guys, up for extensions after next season. Again they had that 20 extra million dollars to give Turner, that's why they signed him to an extension. That's a point that you keep skipping over. He wasn't interested in the deal they offered, until that free money fell out of the sky.

 

Come here for what? To play with Austin Reaves?

 

Here's what matters in Laker land

- also in there Rockets aren't making any big moves until this summer. They want to get a better feel for what they've got.

- lot of stuff on why/why not for SA

 

because he's not for sale at all. because he's worth more than that.

no. we have to give up something someone else wants, though. you keep operating as if it's currency. i've already explained this.

not disagreeing that there might be moves that help us contend. but i'm skeptical of lebron lasting another full season + playoffs.

since magic left, i have very few complaints, tbh. the magic era was f***ING AWFUL. aside from getting lebron (which was lebron and neither rob nor magic), we made all the wrong moves for like, 18 months. it sucked so bad. we finally canned magic, got AD (thanks klutch, for sure), and since then, the only truly bad moves were westbrook (HOLY s*** THE WORST MOVE EVER--thanks lebron/AD), and caruso/THT choice (thanks klutch and jeanie, PRE-punitive apron stuff).

yeah, i mean...who convinced him to choose that course? guess it was the gremlins in his head or magic's rancid ghost?

this is f***ing hilarious. just re-read your post and reconsider. if washington just gave rui to someone else, rob's an idiot and the guy who got him is a GENIUS!!!

let's do this. if turner is traded for draft capital that doesn't return a center to indy, i'll kiss your a**. any other outcome, you kiss mine.

 

Hell No Zubac is not worth more than 2 FRP..FOH with that..you are high on something.

How do you know what anybody wants? Players get traded every year, for less than people thought. What's the matter with you? Are you trying to say that we don't have s***, anyone else would want? WTF does that says about Pelinka?

And what is with you, and all this Magic BS? Magic was the team President for 18 damn months! You keep yapping like he was in that job for a decade or something. Rob was his GM wasn't he? How do you know he wasn't in lock step, with every single move that Magic made? Furthermore who was actually in charge during Magic's run? There were about 4 different chefs in that kitchen, it seemed to be, whoever had Jeanie's ear at the moment. Phil, Linda, Kurt, Tom..the waterboy.

He couldn't even fire Luke without Jeanie changing her mind every other day. You just seem to have, this big hard on for MagicJohnson, for some reason. I don't share that sentiment. Once again you have nothing but excuses for Rob's dumb decisions though. He made the Westbrook trade, he could have flipped him for Kyrie too. He blew a FRP for Shroeder and then let him walk for nothing. He chose Tucker over Caruso. He turned down a FRP pick for Tucker too, in a Lowry trade. Then gave him away for nothing, because he ended up letting Bev walk. Hell..he could have kept those contracts with Bev,Beasley and Bamba, so that we could have flipped them in a trade. He didn't do that either. So every single dumb idea, that Rob had, probably wasn't really his fault? WTF do we need him for then, evidently like Magic, he's not fully in charge! Lol. Lebron came under Magic, the AD trade was started under Magic, the two biggest moves that we've made since getting Pau. We don't get a ring without either. But hey..I guess you think signing Dwight was the equivalent.

Washington is a terribly run franchise, I'd say we took advantage of that fact, not that Rob specifically made some extraordinary move. I'm willing to bet that the Wizards probably called him. Or Westbrook told him, " Hey..you might want to check in with them, on that Rui kid!"

I don't remember anyone saying that Rob specifically targeted Austin, I mean he signed a 2way contract at first. I do remember Lebron saying, that he told them that Austin needed to be bumped up to the big leagues right away. I'd have to go back and refresh on what exactly the deal was there. Hell Rob said, that he saw a potential star in Jalen Hood-Schifino, after watching an Indiana game in person!

Lastly I don't know what Indiana wants, I'm sure if they chose not to pay Turner, they have a contingency plan. It may not involve the Lakers at all, or they could flip Rui and whoever they got for Turner for Vucevic or anyone else they fancy. You know there is a thing in the NBA called 3 or 4 or 5 way trades right? We are going to find out shortly what the deal is.

 

there's nothing here i haven't either addressed previously or is worth addressing now.

anyway, turner's not coming, and it's not because rob pelinka is bad at his job, lol.

btw, the idea that reaves is the hold up on a fox deal is also just ridiculous. it's not true. we might say it, but the truth is, there's not a package of assets we could cobble together that would beat the other offers, reaves or not. we can save face by saying it's about reaves, but it's not. it's about houston and san antonio and several other teams having young players with upside and twice the draft assets. period.

the kings wouldn't take lebron or AD for fox. not because he's better but because...why? why does no one think about what the other team wants when concocting trade scenarios? so we can get mad when we don't make deals that make zero sense for the proposed partners?

yes, indiana should totally tank their season and two years of haliburton's prime (and probably the last two years of siakam's) for our two future picks. makes perfect sense. honestly, just fire everyone if it doesn't happen.

 

I hear you man, and I love Myles Turner for us. That being said, I'm not so sure Indiana wouldn't be, in basically the same place, without him. That's not knocking him either. I don't think they would beat Boston or the Knicks in a 7 game series this season, I'm Iffy on Milwaukee. The C Bags swept them, and the Knicks had injury issues. Giannis didn't even play in that series. Things aren't the same as last season. I'm not ready to crown the Pacers, as some kind of legit title contender. Haliburton is only 23..that's their foundation.

So..getting draft picks and a player , that keeps them in the same position, while avoiding the 1st apron, might be their goal. IDK

On our side..I seriously think that Vucevic is enough myself, and he wont cost a single FRP. There is more than one way to skin a cat, for us and Indiana.

Fox...I don't see that happening period, even if we had another FRP. The Pacers would be more likely a trade partner than the Kings IMO.

At the end of the day, we don't really know what other teams motivations are. Minnesota looked set to be a player in the West, then they decided that, they couldn't afford KAT moving forward. They won't be the last team, that makes business decisions over potentially being a contender.

We are the Lakers, it's about the chips,not just having a decent team.