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

It's not a nothing burger. LeBron knows exactly what he's doing. At minimum he's drawing attention to himself and trying to put pressure on the Lakers. At maximum, he's preparing to ask for a trade to a team of his choice. I lean towards the min rather than the max of those ranges, but Rich Paul isn't coming out and saying that teams are contacting him about trading for LeBron for no reason. There is a concerted Team LeBron effort to say, I'm unhappy, do something for me, or I'm going to look elsewhere. Which I wouldn't mind, even for less value, as long as it's tradeable in the future.

 

i don't think we'll get two out of three, but i agree that ayton without losing assets is preferable to trading for claxton or kessler basically using all we have right now (which is what it would take).

this misinformation is my fault. for some reason i thought indy had a route to that number, but they don't. it's just full MLE. since i don't think ayton would do 4 years at the mle, i feel like it's either a 1+1 either way or our 1+1 vs. their 2+1. in the former case, it's 16 vs 30 in guaranteed money (ish) and in the latter it's 45 million guaranteed with indy. HOWEVA, you have to factor in the opportunity cost as well.

if you believe in yourself, i think you go with the lakers--particularly because we project to have enough space to give ayton a substantial raise next year if he works out. if he plays well in indy, they don't project to have money to give him much of a raise. this is how i'd sell it if i were rob. you play well here, and you'll end up making more over the 4 year period, as we can start talking 25 per for 3-4 years, dwarfing what indy can do.

not signing washed-up veterans?

sounded like miami was asking a lot for wiggins, which is...not something i'd pursue.

 

Less than two hours before Ayton decision will be streamed world wide

 

I am unhappy too .How you can get some players if LeBron paid almost 53 millions
P S .I will trade him to Cherkasski Mavpi because they are professional team since 2003 same year as LeBron started his NBA career

 

On a quick skim, I only see Kessler following Luka, LeBron, and Reaves. I could be missing some. He follows lots of NBA players on other teams though. I can't tell when he started following the 3 Lakers. Some tweets reference it on June 29, but he could have been following them earlier, and people just started making something of it then.

 

In other NBA news....


https://www.sportico.com/leagues/basketball/2025/nba-player-salaries-cut-escrow-system-1234858905/

 

What about both? Capela took a deal starting at $6.8 this year and Lopez at $8.8 for $15.6 combined. That's 10% more than the MLE, but they're low minute backups on their new teams. There's only 15 min/game behind Zubac or Sengun. There's 48 min to split up on the Lakers. Even at 24 min each, that's 60% more PT and raw stats. That's gotta be worth $0.75 mil or so, esp for Capela to try to get another decent contract after this one. So if we get Ayton or somehow Kessler, then great, but if not, then this would have been the other option.

 

BIGGER than The Decision!!

 

If somebody still hopes for Kessler forget it.Stupid ainge still asking for 2 picks and 1 young player.Lakers refused

 

yeah, we can't know this. it's possible those numbers were chosen very specifically. it's also possible that we truly felt that getting laravia was priority one. i don't get it now, but i could see looking back and agreeing.

capela signed for three years, right? i don't think he's expecting another contract, tbh.

and i still think if this is really just teams trying to freeze us out of the center market, they should be careful what they wish for. the last time they colluded to keep us down, we ended up with luka.

 

that's what we paid for mark williams. i'm sure we offered that for kessler. word was ainge wanted even more. probably protection removed from our pick and the other swap we have. maybe more than that, tbh.

 

Idk either, but all I can think of is that Detroit is desperate for 3's after losing Hardaway Jr, Beasley, and Schroder all at once. That's a lot of 3's and PT to replace, and Robinson still shoots the 3 really well.

What indicates that Knecht's trade value is low?

 

At that time only ESPN were broadcasting some NBA news ,now every f***ing bloger think that he can become a millionaire on YouTube or Tic tock.So technically ,yes much bigger

 

knecht and 1sts for duren plz.

i'm speculating. we had to add two firsts (essentially) in the mark williams deal, and we haven't been able to get any other center, and i'm sure he's been on the table.

maybe i'm wrong, though.

 

LaRavia could be very good, but there's no way he should be higher priority than Centers right now.

Yes, Capela signed for 3 years and might not get another contract. That's my point - why would you take that contract for 15 min/gm, when you could take a 1+1 or 2+1 for similar money with the Lakers at 24 min+, getting passes from Luka, LeBron, and AR, and then try to get another contract in a year or two? I'm assuming the reason is because Rob didn't pursue him or Lopez as priority #1, and has been making Ayton priority #1. If we end up with Ayton or better, then the moves make sense. If not, then it's a huge fail, and there were other options.

 

Maybe Ibaka will get sign ?
He isn't playing in Euro league anymore so maybe he can still play 20 minutes
He's younger than Lopez

 

i guess i'm saying it's possible we didn't value those two centers that highly. we fans may have, but the FO may not have. no one wants to hear it, but i'm not sure i want them on the books more than year at a number bigger than tpmle, either. they're not young, and they're not trending in the right direction. we've been burned there.

i don't know. he played the first several years in houston and maybe doesn't want to play that many minutes anymore? i'm sure we'll hear whether we offered him anything.

if ayton was priority #1, you don't sign laravia, right? or at least sign him to the BAE.

things aren't quite adding up for me, either. the simplest current explanation is that getting laravia at that number was pretty important to someone, lol.

 

Sure, I'd love that, but all we're talking about is why Det signed Robinson to that contract, right? So if they want a 3 pt shooter and to keep Duren and not trade/lose any other players, who is better at 3's than Robinson for them to sign? (I don't really care about this, but just offering a possible rationale for Det.)

For Williams, it was Knecht, a 1st, and a swap, right? I don't see why a swap would be essentially a first, bc I would expect us to be better than them, our pick to be lower, and the swap to be useless. It's just something of slight value in case unexpected things happen. If that's the case, then Knecht, a 1st, and a swap seems fair. Williams (if healthy) is far more proven, has better numbers, fills our needs almost perfectly, and is better than Knecht at basically everything except 3's. So the value seems fair.

For other centers, I'm not sure who Knecht has been included in a trade for, other than Kessler, and we all know Ainge is ridiculous about values. I'd have to see who else turned down Knecht + expiring + picks/swaps, to see how high or low other teams are valuing him.