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

ooohhh, they gave him the lebron special, too.

 

dude is going to be too old very soon as well.

 

as much as the kings/murray deal concerned me, the portland deals for camara and sharpe heartened me.

imo, those are below-market numbers (for a small market team). good on portland for having the organizational culture that got these guys to forego what might have been bigger money on the open market.

not sure this changes anything trade-wise for thybulle/williams, but it probably helps offset reaves's market a bit after that murray contract. if sharpe and camara will go for 20-25 per, i'm not sure reaves's agent can feel as confident asking for 40.

 

I like the way Portland are building and running things. Those contracts are really good for them.

Jrue / Lillard
Sharpe / Scoot
Avdija / Thybulle
Camara / Grant
Clingan / Hansen

They have an interesting Center pairing. Clingan is in that Kessler Walker mold of a good rebounder and rim protector while Yang Hansen has huge upside.

Guard wise they have Damien Lillard and Jrue Holiday as the vets with Sharpe and Scoot as the youngsters. It's an ok mix, but the vets are getting too old (and injured) while the young guys are just ok so far.

On the wings they have maybe my favourite defender in Camara, Avdija has come into his own offensively with more usage and Jerami Grant & Thybulle that can take up some of the vet minutes.

I imagine they'll try to make the playoffs this year because most of their young guys aren't so young anymore - but they're kind of one great draft pick away from being really good so I'd try to tank if I was them.

 

I agree they should tank another year, but they’re clearly not on board. They aren’t a FA destination, so their best bet might be to try and trade for a disgruntled star using their picks, expirings, and surplus talent. Not sure who that target would be—would have said Zion, but I don’t think he’s on the block anymore.

 

Ja so they can pair him with Lillard and Jrue.

They should be building that team around Avidja

 

Yang may surprise us all and be Jokic lite. At that point a core of Yang, Sharpe, Avidja & Camara is pretty nice. I don’t think it’s good enough to win anything, but they could make a conference final just like Lillard did.

 

I like Hansen and Avidja - the Lillard and Jrue stuff makes no sense though

I was joking about Ja but that would have been a fun move to pair him with Jrue and get out of the Lillard business. Him Hansen and Avidja I'd pay to watch

 

still not on the yang-as-jokic bus. i'm not seeing the same things others are. maybe yang as vlade.

 

Listened to Nate Duncan's season preview this morning. He picked us for 46 wins, which was good for the 7 seed so in the play-in. I think that's probably on the lower range of this season's potential outcomes, but within a reasonable range of outcomes.

Over the offseason he talks with an "expert" on each team, usually a beat reporter or someone who covers that team exclusively or primarily. He said last year there were something like 1230 total wins combined among the 30 teams, but if you add up the wins predictions from each of the 30 experts it added up to 1290. Which illustrates the obvious point that the local guys tend to overrate the teams they cover a little bit, and that the bottom will just fall out for a handful of teams in ways you can't really predict.

I could see us winning anywhere from like 45 wins (Ayton and Smart just aren't that impactful, LeBron is worse than last year and also misses time, defense is just bad) to like 55 games (Luka is MVP, LeBron is All-NBA caliber, we manage to scrape together a Top 12ish defense with a Top 5 offense and probably make a trade mid-season). Definitely feels like a wider range of outcomes than the last few LeBron/AD seasons.

 

Wow, that’s a nice outcome from Denver. I read reports of CB asking for 30+ per year

 

Good,Austin will benefit from this too and not be asking for 40+ millions

 

gs is such a bad opening night matchup, man. they're as healthy as they'll be all year, and most of their guys have a ton of experience playing in their system and with each other. my expectations for tomorrow are low.

 

Contract Gabe and DominAyton will come thru!

I've always been a Democrat but not a communist because I believe in the power of cash money

 

It’s an interesting game. I’m hoping we start the season off well but it’s a tough opener for us.

 

Ayton, Luka and AR will all have big games. Gabe and Smart will keep Curry in check. It should be close but we will take it.

 

Seems there has been some pushback in contracts with numerous players asking in excess of 30m settling for sub 30m. And the ones that didn’t are in trouble like Grimes or Kuminga. The ones that settled like Giddey, Daniels, Braun and Sharpe have lowered the market a little bit for Reaves.

Although I don’t know what the Kings were thinking with Murray - but they’re the Kings.

 

kings just kangz over and over, man. i wish they didn't delusionally see us as a rival with whom they can't trade, because they basically make the wrong choice at almost every turn. it's wild.

 

I haven't had time to dive in on the news the last few days, but I think some extensions are to the max allowed for those players, a la Reaves. I think guys like Camara and Daniels were like that, but would have to check.

Also remember seeing somewhere that AR's max is capped at like 42 million. Again, would have to confirm.
But if that's the case I would be comfortable he stays close to the 35mil range. He definitely likes it here and he's also in a great situation with Luka moving forward. 5-7 million more shouldn't drive him to change city and go to a less secure situation

Murray got the Grant special. Tall 3&D forwards are scarce and have high demand. But some teams end up overpaying them which makes them bad assets