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

Well see this narrative doesn't make any sense to me. We are talking about giving up, the corpses of Gabe and Kleber, and you seem to imply that we should be receiving, an All-Star caliber player in return or something. That's utterly ridiculous.

You give up some junk that you don't want, for a legit starting 5, that is avg this season.

17 pt 9rebs 4 assists 1 blk 1 stl and shoots 57% from 2p and 37% from 3 and 80% from the FT line.

How in the hell, can't you find that level of production, an asset on this roster?

So then we fall back to " between Orlando and Chicago, he never seemed like a player capable of leveling up his teams, nor did he ever have the ability to challenge and challenge outside the box.

What does that even mean? It's Vucevic fault that his teams weren't great? Well you are familiar with Aaron Gordon right? You know before he got to Denver, he'd only made the playoffs once in Orlando? Ironically the year he played with Vucevic. Did this lack of prior playoffs success, stop Gordon from becoming a key piece in Denver's success? That type of stuff gets overblown, a team's playoffs success, depends on all the rotation players, on the team doesn't it?


Oh then we get to the Holy Grail of Vucevic criticism! He's a poor defender!! Is that actually a fact?
His career defensive rating is 107.9 that's not a horrible defender by any stretch. Ayton is 112 for his career. Vucevic defensive rating this season is 116 not great but Ayton's is 115.6..however Ayton is considered the better defender. I think his coach puts Vucevic defense in the proper context here...

https://chicago.suntimes.com/bulls/...-vucevic-getting-defensive-numbers-back-it-up

Rebounding is a form of defense, being solid in the paint against other bigs is important too. I'm not all that concerned about switching, you can scheme around that but most bigs are going to get roasted on switching on to perimeter players.

This dude would be an absolute steal, at the price we would be paying. You guys are trying too hard, at nitpicking IMO.

 

yeah, gs and us want similar folks, and they just have way more/better assets unless we're moving reaves.

i still wonder what the real story with murphy is. pretty much all sources say that NO says he's off limits, yet teams keep making pitches or at least telling members of the press that they'd like to.

i'm not sure what NO's endgame idea is here with the holding onto murphy/jones thing. is the plan to move off zion, hope murray returns better than most do after a torn achilles, and build around queen/murray/fears/murphy/jones? i sort of hate that idea, but it's dumars, so who knows what they're thinking.

to that point, i almost want to make some sort of trade with NO right now simply because it's pretty rare that a bad gm is in place, and if there is one, you need to take advantage. if he's committing to some players, it means he must not be committed to others. is there a way to zubac/muscala them?

 

vuc hasn't been as bad defensively as his reputation, true, but he has been declining and is at his lowest point now.

the bigger issue continues to be that i'm pretty sure he's not available for gabe/kleber anyway.

 

I can't argue the last part, I wouldn't do it, but Chicago moves weird. Maybe he wants out, in order to catch on with a contender. Id be all over him if he got bought out. I'd make a run at him over the summer, if he was unrestricted too.

 

to me what makes chicago "weird' is that they don't tank. in some ways, it's actually sensible or admirable. their management is always trying to make incremental improvements. the way to improve incrementally whilst trading vucevic is not to move him for expirings, as he himself is an expiring! if he's moved, they'll want either talent (more likely) or draft picks (less likely, imo). maybe we could move knecht and a swap and get terry back from them in a larger vuc deal, but then we'd have to deal with having three centers who all want and deserve playing time.

i just don't see a vuc angle for us at all. as you said, maybe next year in FA, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the bulls just use his bird rights to give him a large-money short-term deal again. and i'm not getting into a bidding war for a 36 year old center.

 

If NO wants to salary dump Zion I would still go for it - contracts match up where you don't have to give up Reaves.
I'm assuming some team would want to give real assets for him but if's he's in Trae Young category I would do it for the Lakers.

You're not going to win this year but Zion is the Lebron replacement going forward to pair with Luka and Reaves. Zion unlike Morant and Young I'm convinced can still be a real difference maker on a title team

 

Wow..Luka, Lebron,Austin, Zion, Ayton,Smart and that's not a title contender? Jeesh..we aint ever winning s*** again.

 

It's super talented just awkward fit as Luka/Lebron/Zion would be kind of defending the same areas on defense and like the same areas on offense

Down the road I think a Luka/AR/Zion actually fits pretty well offensively

 

I don't like the Zion/Luka pairing. Offensively, I think teams would just switch their P&Rs all the time. That is a big reason why the LeBron/AD P&R never ended up being as great as I thought it would when we first traded AD IMO. Teams got comfortable switching that as LeBron got older, especially if there was another non-shooter on the court whom a defender could help off of if either LeBron or AD tried to punish the "mismatch". And then defensively I think Luka and Zion need to play the same role - low man/helper. Would be a similar issue that we have with the Luka/LeBron/Rui defensive redundancy now. I don't think you can play Zion at the 5 either if two of your other defenders are Luka and Austin.

 

I get the fit issue but talent overrules fit at some levels and Zion if he can stay healthy is one of those guys. The finishing, mismatches that he creates off luka/AR would be something worth exploring. at the least I think you can significantly increase his value and trade him down the road (buy low, sell high) if it doesn't work

 

where would claxton fit with ayton here?

 

I think claxton talk is stupid. Combo of Ayton and Hayes is working out well. Claxton has been worse then both Ayton and Hayes this year/
his advanced metrics look real ugly

 

I posted the trade talk more based on the thought that teams are finally sobering up and ready to talk realistic trades.

I also think all the smoke around Claxton and MPJ indicates we are likely talking to the Nets in some capacity.

Claxton weighs heavily on how much you believe in Hayes IMO. I don't hate it though and think he's in that group of guys who could instantly look better with Luka.

I believe he is a better shotblocker than our guys though and find it hard to believe he can't give us more than guys like Dalton or Maxi.

 

I think this is fair, but the consistency issues with Ayton makes it hard for me to dismiss the whole thing outright.

 

having dealt with similar dynamics in my life, I saw this a million miles away. If the family kept the team, the younger Buss kids were the ones who would really profit off the team. Jeannie set up all the Buss owners to profit equally and that is what I would have done and it was the morally responsible thing to do. At this point, scroo the younger Buss kids. This hit piece shows their true colors. If I was in the Buss family, this is the last time I would be involved with them. F'em!!!!!! They are ungrateful entitled and self serving little douche bags.

The league has changed and family run teams are a thing of the past. It just takes too much money to keep the team afloat. Half a billion each!! That is some serious multigenerational wealth. It was time for the Buss family to get out of the Lakers business, they were NOT going to be able to compete with all these golden toilet seat owners. She knew the writing was on the wall, she also saw the younger kids playing power games behind the scenes, trying to wrestle for control.

I am more than glad Walter owns the team now, and pray that he makes the right moves going forward. These kind of hit pieces are done purposefully to simply hurt Jeannie out of spite.

 

Latest from Fischer...

Pelicans are strange. A bottom feeder with half their roster listed as untouchables

Sorry Slick

 

if zion could be had for a trae young package, i do it yesterday. his contract situation is actually not bad with those incentives. but i believe that NO isn't selling yet.

that said, i agree with jsm that i don't know what NO is doing. poole and alvarado are available, eh? well, so are maxi kleber and gabe vincent, i guess. and they're willing to trade missi for mathurin whilst holding onto murphy, jones, and bey. where is mathurin going to play?

man i would have killed for claxton or goga last year, but with hayes improving and ayton here, it's just not a big need. further, you risk losing ayton completely mentally. and if you trade ayton, basically no buyout candidate is going to pick us in the future, imo. so that's a non-starter.

 

Man...Ayton for Mathurin, followed up with the Claxton trade? That's an intriguing idea.