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

salary-wise, it's easy. roster-wise it's tougher, as it would have to be a 3 for 1 unless we're moving rui, which i'd like to avoid, obviously.

i think this stat could be construed differently: jaxson hayes has no other offensive game. of course he's going to have dunks and shots right at the rim eat up a lot of his attempts. ayton can actually hit the midrange jumper and score from the post, so he's going to take more shots like that.

you rarely get contact on lobs. now, if you want to argue ayton's not a great screener, there might be something there.

i wouldn't use blocks. but yes, he's just an ok defender, particularly given his physical tools.

the trade ideas we've floated involve losing only vando and gabe among rotation players. gabe was nearly vet min replaceable last year, tbh. and jj didn't want to play vando in the playoffs. if ayton didn't work out, he's all the way off the books.

if i had to choose, i'd obviously take capela at the tpmle vs. trading for ayton, too. but we need the market to freeze him out first, and thus need a plan b.

i don't think phx gives us richards, despite their center acquisitions. they just wouldn't want to help us out.

 

Is it normal for guys to travel that blatantly on those catch and shoots? He jumped and shifted his feet before shooting.

 

noticed that, too. every shot was illegal. good stroke, though!


yeah, garren, meant to say 4 for 1 (add shake's deal to vando and the expirings). portland won't want all that, obviously. would need a third team.

 

What do we think Patrick Williams' trade value is? He's guaranteed $18M per for at least the next 3 years with a PO on the 4th. Williams hasn't progressed the way they'd hoped and the Bulls are regretting that deal. Do they consider a swap of Vando + Kleber for him and a future 2nd or 2? Vando has 1 less year on his contract and almost 1/2 the annual salary, so Bulls shed some decent money. We take on the risk of the Williams contract and buy low, hoping he takes a step forward on a good team, while also getting additional assets to try and throw at Utah for Kessler.

 

i'd need a first for the williams contract. that thing is serious, man. and he's been pretty bad on the court, pretty much always. say what you want about vando, but he's consistently a plus defender, which is worth something. both guys are hurt a lot.

 

Agree. I think Vando is being undervalued in some of the discussions here. I don't mean in terms of trade value, I mean in terms of his playing value to the Lakers. We have a very good coach, but one who only trusts and plays certain players in the playoffs*. Vando was one of them. Brought in anywhere from 1st to 3rd off the bench. Averaged 12 min, including 19 min and 1st off the bench in the closeout game. Was only -2, -6, +5, -3, and +3 for only -3 pts overall when Lakers lost the series by 35 pts overall. His defense makes a positive impact on the game despite his lack of offense, and the +/- shows that**.

What I am really hoping is that Thiero can be a Vando clone on defense, but far better on offense, and possibly even develop a 3 pt shot now that he's grown into his hands and body. But that probably won't be this next year, and we would be lucky if it happens in 2-3 years. So for now, Vando provides an extremely necessary role for this team, which is severely lacking in POA defense, esp when you start Luka, Reaves, LeBron, Rui, center. If the Lakers can add NAW or someone, then Vando becomes more expendable, but right now we really need him for 15-20 min a game.



*I am hoping this changes next season, but there's no guarantee or even sign of that, as his post-playoffs comments defended his choices.

**While a limited stat, it still shows the point being made, that his +defense outweights his -offense, and that lineups with him outperformed lineups without him in the playoffs, at least against the opposing units he played against.

 

Especially if he’s actually utilized guarding perimeter players. Amongst one of the dumbfounding mistakes JJ made in the postseason was making him a 5 and having him guard in the post. I actually wouldn’t be overly opposed to he and Rui swapping roles and inserting him in the starting lineup to be our POA defender. I trust AR, Luka and Lebron to do the scoring and find small pockets of offense for him as well.

 

This, for sure! On defense, Vando needs to be POA for us, not a small ball 5. I like Rui, but he should not be starting on this team when we need POA defense. Starters should be POA defender, Reaves, Luka, LeBron, Center rim defender.

The POA would hopefully be NAW or someone else good that we can get, and if not, then Vando, Goodwin, Vincent. With a solid POA defender, then Austin can take the 2nd guy out of the 1-3, and Luka can take the worst guy. With that slotting plus a rim defender, the defense can look okay.

 

He might have to compete against KD recruiting him to come to Houston?

 

Good morning S A-hole S

 

Dumb luck is NOT a plan. He's dumber than I thought.


Speaking of dumb...

He really misguided him every step of this draft process.

 

There should be an NBA-official process to handle this.

Don't want to be drafted to that team? Don't play and you're also never allowed to be signed to an NBA team again.

It should be a luxury for anyone to be drafted by any team and having these college dudes show up thinking they can decide which team they will play for is unfair for a team.

 

it's tricky, as you've already taken some of the agency of the employee by having a draft at all, right? but the league can't function very well without one.

seems like a good case for real arbitration, which doesn't happen in the nba much, as i recall, but at least used to be fairly common in baseball.

the whole thing is icky to me, as bailey/his agent is being a bit of a jerk by trying to choose his location, but the jazz just defying it with a fym is also not a great look nor a good way to start a partnership. if, say, the nets wanted bailey and he wanted them, both parties should have approached utah and tried to work things out without it getting to this, imo.

i'm not sure bailey's even worth all this fuss.

btw, i'm sure this has been hashed out elsewhere and brushed off, but what's the reason i shouldn't be concerned about the #2 and #5 draft pick playing on the same team in college and that team being bad?

 

This was just weird as hell - I mean the fab 5 went to the Final Four at a time when college basketball had significantly I mean just way more talent than it does now. it boggles the mind that these guys are this legit talented but the team didn't finish above .500

 

Whitmore seems to have been made available

 

That’s a red flag to me

 

i guess my question is: could it be that they aren't that good of players?

you think of guys selected in the lotto together (e.g., vince carter and antawn jamison), and those teams were generally good.

so yeah, maybe the stars aligned weirdly, but also...

impossible. he and jaimie are heading straight to springfield.

i was just kidding above. there's just no room for whitmore there. there wasn't before kd, and swapping brooks and green for durant doesn't really open much up for him. he's not beating out eason, smith, or thompson for wing minutes, imo.

question is what can houston get for him? he hasn't shown enough to warrant an unprotected 1st--even if you still believe in the pre-college hype. maybe another team has a recently drafted big or pg who's getting squeezed out?