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

They're tripling down on size and defense. Remains to be seen if they'll be able to score reliably enough in the halfcourt to beat the best teams in the conference. KD alone used to guarantee you a Top 15 offense, not sure that's the case anymore.

The West is going to be rock-paper-scissors again. All about the matchups. I think we match up well with Denver, but Houston could be a really tough one for us.

 

Meh. The firecrackers are going to self destruct eventually. That Texas 3 step is going to be a doozy, during the regular season tho.

 

Anyone who says otherwise didn’t play in it.

 

Moving in a different direction...anyone think Luka and Jah could coexist?

 

Totally agree. Which is why we're a contender, even if we're in the 2nd tier behind OKC, Houston, and Denver. There are like 8 teams in the West that could win it all, and a handful more in the East.

Could be anyone's year, just like it was almost anyone's year last season, with Indy almost winning it all.

We wouldn't be favorites, but I'm not scared of any other team, and give us around 40% against the teams ahead of us. Possibly more if the new additions gel and the defense gets worked out.

Definitely not scared of OKC. Wasn't scared of Denver last season but they look better this season. Houston looks best on paper, but they fizzled in the 1st round last year. KD and the new additions might be enough, but like you said, that remains to be seen. Anyway, it should be another interesting year again. Hope it works out better this time.

 

Finished catching up from yesterday. Fantastic post. Agree with almost all, but particularly the last paragraph, especially this part:

we're good enough to contend if we get some lucky breaks

 

houston's taking a page out of the clippers playbook from a few years back and signing as many wings as they can

 

no, but ironically i think they'd probably get along off the court lol. but both need the ball too much to be effective. luka can play off the ball, but basically nobody is good enough to warrant doing that.

 

These are all basically the same article, aggregating the same singular source, a lesser known outlet/reporter who some have questioned the credibility of.

The original article was put out a couple days ago, July 20, and the Smart news broke July 19, and I'm guessing he's just repeating Jrue stuff that he heard mainly before the Smart news. I doubt it's any inside info from after the Smart news. Even the wording of the original article sounds like guesswork.

Original article that all of those reference:

https://fastbreakjournal.com/jrue-holiday-los-angeles-lakers-trade-candidate-nba-rumors/

 

i just don't get managing the cap like we have and then blowing it up for holiday. it's the kind of move i'd expect one of the desperate big swingers to make.

 

Stay away from my tree!! Jeezus mister macho stuff it on everyone while getting hurt on 30% of those attempts. Dumb a**. Him not you.

 

Austin > Ja

 

The Clippers aren't that old. The main thing is the age of the leaders, not the bench players. In this regard, the Warriors, Lakers, and now Houston have more to worry about. They depend on players who are over 37 (Durant will be in September).



The Lakers have a leader who is 26, the Clippers have one who is 33, the second players - for the Lakers it's 40, for the Clippers it's 36 soon, and the third - for the Lakers it's 26, for the Clippers it's 32. The question is, why should the Lakers worry about the age of their players? Well, the Warriors, yes, they are also gathering a bunch of old players (especially if they bring in Horford

 

People are thinking that if LeBron is 40 so all Lakers players are going to retire soon too