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

Men’s health.

Luka Doncic completely different training regimen all summer. Extreme fasting. Two morning meals protein shake.

training shooting. weight training. Luka stopped his usual pickle ball after the season. And took a whole month to train.

says he’s more athletic. And will train like this the rest of his career.

he hired a team team Luka. And trained extensively in Croatia.

Says his workouts have been in the mold and mimicked Jordan and Kobe.

We got a great one. Here’s an example why Dallas you don’t trade this guy. You have a true superstar. You don’t trade a superstar.

Lukas out for revenge. We could be seeing Lukas first MVP. And I think All Shai stuff has motivated him.

getting Ayton was huge cause we’re ready to go. That pick and roll is going to be something special. Everybody do their Job and let Luka carry us and we’re going to see something special. Avery Johnson eat your words. We got Luka.

what a stud 26 years old. The extension should be signed this weekend. I guess we’ll see the photos at the Jordan brand promotion this weekend.

I think this off season was Magics 84 Kobe’s 2008 LeBrons 12 Jordan’s 89

 

Now if we can get DA to commit to some strong workout sessions

IF he is can someone post a link?

Thanks

 

lol, best i can do is this scrimmage footage from team bahamas?



looked a bit slow on a bunch of closeouts and not really setting hard screens on the ball (though the ballhandlers weren't doing a great job setting it up). he has really good hands and is more skilled than he gets to show in the nba game, like many bigs, i think.

i'd really like to see how he does on the short roll as a decision maker, because that's how he could become a near star for us. with all the attention luka gets, the defense gives you an outlet, usually a big who's not right next to the hoop. i think ayton could really generate a lot of buckets in those situations, but he'll have to make quick reads to kick to shooters and cutters. what's different between him and hayes there is the defense will have to commit to stopping ayton once he catches from 15 with room to work. with hayes, they were just like...go to town, brah.

 

I mean if…. Then yes, hang the banner. The front court is exactly what we need (defense with Ayton, stretch with Vuc).

My money is he’s a Warrior but hoping.

 

might depend on horford? i mean, the warriors could play both, i suppose.

the kuminga situation means they have like, nobody on the roster right now as they try to figure things out.


but yeah, i think they'll end up with horford, melton, and vuc if he's bought out.

 

Thank you for the information

 

It's probably just what you already said, rebounding and role. Like, who would have been more valuable on the Lakers this past postseason, Poeltl or Herb? Clearly Poeltl to me.

Or in a vacuum, with zero defenders on a team, who is more valuable, AD or Smart?

The guard and wing defenders impact mainly 1 guy at a time, while the big man rim and help defenders can affect and cover for several guys on defense.

 

I don't what it is exactly but between the facial expressions and the lack of aggression on his movements, Ayton just exudes I'm playing for s***s and giggles. He would totally piss me off if he was my teammate lol

 

I think it just comes down to basic geometry - a perimeter guy can only take one guy while a big can impact team defense with rim protection. The rim protection impacts the offense of all 5 opposing players regardless of where they are at any one time.

Interestingly two of if not greatest teams of all times - bulls and gs both had elite defenses built around multiple suffocating switchable defenders rather than a dominant big. Not that it disproves the stats but it shows team building is more about end outcomes when combining your different assets into a completed puzzle. 3 all nba caliber defenders and you don't need that big.

 

I'd quibble with the GS example as Draymond actually is a pretty damn good rim protector. He's obviously a lot shorter than most rim protectors, but he has really long arms and impeccable timing on his rotations. He's so unique because in his prime he could do that and hold up on the perimeter. The earlier versions of the Warriors also had Bogut who was a pretty damn intimidating presence around the basket.

I wasn't around for the Bulls so I can't speak to why they were so dominant defensively despite the lack of a really good anchor big like you pointed out. I suspect it was in part because Jordan, Pippen and Rodman just overwhelmed teams with ball pressure and athleticism during an era of relatively weak guard play.

 

Agree on Bogut he was really an underrated part of the pre Durant GS run. That being said the death lineup didn't include him

And while Draymond is a good rim protector for his position this is similar to Lebron when he feels like it can erase mistake. What made Draymond and that defense special is he could take a post player despite being shorter than most centers and his switchability (he could guard a wing and a center)

 

I don't trust any defensive stat with Lebron in the name. Red flags everywhere.

 

this is the part that doesn't square for me. gobert, zubac, and other bigs with great defensive metrics are routinely removed from important moments of games for defensive purposes. this tells me that the stats i like--like most stats about anything--are meant only to apply to repeated applications and might need to be thrown out the window in some circumstances.

i actually think guys like caruso cover for lots of folks. especially guys who are good screen navigators--they make everyone's life easier and thus make it possible to hide weaker defenders more effectively. when denver had both kcp and bruce brown, it really helped mitigate that the other three heavy minutes guys weren't great defenders (caveat--jokic is a GREAT defender by the stats, but if you watch denver play, they build the whole defensive system to hide his weaknesses).

yeah, i think it's possible to build a defense without a big. the lineup jj preferred with DFS and lebron and rui basically trading off back line defense is an example. but you can't play a full season like that.

for us, i think ayton is hopefully a minutes-eater for regular season and to open halves of playoff games. in crunch time, i'm still in favor of lebron at center, tbh. i wish he'd embrace a draymond role instead of trying to be curry.

 

jokic's rebounding is an underrated part of his game - he has absolutely unreal hands in terms of both strength and eye hand coordination. He's got slow feet but those arms move quick and he is a vacuum for anything that falls into his area.

Really helps his defensive metrics after watching him beat the Lakers the last few years - he gets Denver so many extra possessions because of his hands (this includes tip and deflections which aren't reflected in his rebounding totals)

Also Caruso was the only non big in the top 20 espn net points defensive metrics which lends to your theory but kind of also disproves it in general. you have to be a freak of nature as a guard to have the same impact (individually) as a big in general. I still can't believe the Lakers let this guy go - this was such an obvious error at the time. Just unreal.

 

yeah, i think that's true of a lot of these slower bigs that show up positive on these metrics. vucevic actually grades out as a good defender despite some pretty alarming video evidence to the contrary. a lot can be accomplished simply by being huge, having high hoop iq, and having great hands.

what can't be solved is when a team can pull you from the hoop. we couldn't do that to denver, and okc almost lost to them because they struggled to convert from the perimeter enough to punish jokic for being slow.

however, on a couple key shots in crunch time, they did capitalize on him being largely unwilling/able to leave the paint. the media just ignored it because he's got the hardware.

 

I think one of most interesting hypothetical matchups would have been prime Shaq against a prime Jokic. Of course throw in Wilt into these but it's interesting as they are the two best centers of the last 25 years (duncan's the greatest PF of all time IMO) and are true "big boys".

 

Lotta good points above. Regarding bigs, from this discussion, it seems like rebounding may be more important than it is generally given credit for. Nobody thinks it's unimportant, but it's often not regarded as highly as some other areas, and it might be underrated regarding defense. I haven't done a deep stats dive, but generally it seems that the champion is a top 5 rebounding team (in the playoffs), which makes sense, but is not talked about as much as other forms of rim protection.

The Bulls teams discussed above are regarded as not having great big man defense due to the C position, but perhaps Rodman's rebounding made up for that. They were 1st, 2nd, and 4th in their championship years. The Shaq-Kobe Lakers, for all the discussion about Shaq not being as good on defense as he should have been, were 1st in rebounding in the year they were dominant, and 4th and 5th in the other 2 championship years. Despite Jokic's defensive deficiencies, he still rebounds, and they were top 5 in their chip year. Etc.

Anyway, it needs more examination, but just a thought. Lakers were trash in rebounding last year and recently, so I'm glad Ayton should help shore that up this year.

 

LeBron helping bring Jokic here next summer obv.

 

How about big plans for this season jerk off?

 

????? who are you directing this at?