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

are those good or bad news ?
Los Angeles Lakers
Austin Reaves
Set to miss at least another week

Luka Doncic
Out at least one more week

or maybe it's not news ,just hype on Twitter

 

Luka, AR, Ellis, Watson, Ayton, Smart, Kennard, Oubre, Hayes and LaRavia is a nice team

Adding 2/3 solid wings to Luka, AR, Ayton/Hayes, Smart, Kennard and LaRavia is a better team than Denver and that's an achievable goal this summer. We will become much better defensively. We are outside the top10 with this group, we need to be top5 to win a championship

OKC is in another level and Spurs had more picks and got offered Fox. Both are building for years. We can't get there in 1 summer, no one can. But we can chase the next best thing which is becoming better than Denver, and I believe that means parting with LeBron and start building chemistry with a new group

 

Seems no one wants Hartenstein? That guy is a winning player and impacts whatever team he has gone to. I’d be interested in getting him.

 

His 28 million salary for 26-27 might be too high for us. But, I don't think he is the best fit anyway for us. He's doesn't really block shots, and he's not a lob-threat. He likes to post up and do push shots. Just, not the best fit with Luka. He's been kind of overrated because he was on the big-market Knicks, and then on a championship OKC team. People would see him on national TV a lot, so there is some bias with that.

 

And they say Lamelo doesn't take the game, serious enough to lead a team? Great game!

 

Meh..Hartenstein and Holmgren, were a big part of why OKC won a Championship.

 

Two great games tonight.

 

Avidja is such a beast. So badly wanted to trade for him back when he was the Wizards. One of my better calls on this site. Makes up for my love of THTs potential lol

 

Overrated? I would say he is underrated. Maybe even extremely so.

First of all he is a very good defensive rebounder to the point where teams don’t get a lot of offensive rebounds against his teams - recent years have shown how valuable second chance opportunities are from offensive rebounds, they’re the holy grail and one of the reasons why Dennis Rodman is so valuable.

He is a legitimate point center, meaning he can get you 5 assists per game to go with 10 points and 10 rebounds. The offence runs a lot better with him on the floor for every team he has played for. His numbers per 36 are bonkers - it’s like 14/14/6 with 3 stocks.

He is a very good defender that can anchor an elite defense. He is good at steals, blocks a little, alters shots, can switch out onto the perimeter but is just generally in the right place at the right time.

Offensively he has a push shot that’s automatic and can finish lobs to an above average level.

Lastly, and most importantly, he is elite at screening. He is going to get AR and Luka open everytime down the floor. He might not rim run after the screen like others, but he is elite at beating the 4 on 3 if someone doubles our ball handlers on the PnR. He’ll hit the push shot or find the open man everytime.

He is one of the most underrated role players in the league - kinda like Derrick White was. Just an all round winning player.

 

I feel bad for him. He's like Austin Reaves. Too good for their current contract and have to stick it out for a bit because they didn't get the chance to actually blossom into what they really are.

Deni is going to be stuck on $13 million for the couple of years when he's a max contract type of player. Easily losing out on $80 million and because of his age, he probably only has one good long-term max contract in him when it should be two.

I'm looking at the Blazers roster... man, if Lillard is healthy and they trade Shaedon+Jerami+4 first rounders for Giannis... watch out for the Blazers.

Giannis, Lillard, Holiday, Avdija, Scoot, Clingan and a serviceable roster overall.

If Lillard was healthy this season, this would be a 50+ win team.

They went through a rather quick rebuild. Major props to their front office. Look at Toumani Camara and Clingan. Dominating frontcourt.

Giannis, Clingan, Toumani, Avdija, Lillard...

 

That team isn't any better, than the one we have now. The rest of the West aren't going to be idly standing by, just watching OKC and San Antonio either. Other teams are going to looking to make moves too.

Adding Ellis and Watson and keeping LeBron, while bringing in 1 more young guy, to go with Thiero would be solid. It will require some work, but it could be done, I really don't expect Ellis and Watson, to cost as much as some folks think, but we shall see.

 

you may have answered your own question? i just don't expect he'll be the cap casualty there. they have an abundance of guards, but only one real center (if they try to play chet there for a full season, he'll break). the main differences between the team that got beat by dallas and the team that's poised to win a second straight title was adding hartenstein and caruso. caruso is aging out a bit and they have other guards ready to step into that void, so my expectation was that it would be him to go (or dort, though i expect caruso's the one they try to move first).

i actually expect they'll decline hartenstein's option and work out an extension at a lower dollar amount than 27. perfect time to do it with almost nobody having cap space. would he turn down 4/100? to get under the second apron, they need to shave about 25m off the payroll (don't know if that's their goal), but dropping a few mil off hartenstein and then dumping caruso and aaron wiggins into space could do it. that's all long-term money, but they have an extra first in this year's draft and no place to put it, so that could be the sweetener. downside for them is that the best spot to make the move would be...with us! pretty sure they'd be concerned about handing us even an old/diminished caruso, though.

anyway, long story short, i don't expect hartenstein to be available.

 

I meant more why none of our fans are interested in him. Too often we get hung up on athletic plays and forget about efficacy. Missi and Okongwu are way more athletic looking, but they can’t hold a candle to the impact of ihart.

OKC won’t operate above the second apron and they’ll want to get down some towards the middle of the first apron. So they’ll probably get rid of closer to 30m in salary. Hartenstein is a really easy way to do that by trading him into cap space or letting him walk. I highly doubt they do the latter, there is a small chance they do the former if we pay 2 firsts?

Much more likely is they get rid of Kenrich Williams’ 7.1m by letting him walk and trading Lu Dort’s 18.2m contract for some future draft capital.

They may also consider trading Caruso instead of Dort. This would allow them to let Dort walk the following season when SGA’s super max kicks in.

 

I think it is because the pieces fit better. Bron and Rui cause issues in defensive matchups. Bron, Rui and Luka need to defend the same guys (4s or forward floor spacers that stand in the corner). Every time they share the floor, one of them (or 2 if they're all on the court) is pushed to guard someone they are less comfortable with. That's automatically a disadvantage and other teams exploit it

Having Ellis and Watson allows us to have Luka on 4s as he should, Watson guarding the best forward as he should, Ellis on the main guard as he should and AR with the 2nd guard as he should. All pieces fit perfectly and we are maximizing our group. That's automatically like 10 additional points for us.

A lot of times getting less talent but better pieces can benefit the team. Just look at Atlanta. They traded Trae for CJ and are a much better team. Because they are better defensively and offensively the pieces fit better.

Also, in that mock team I'm not even counting trades and our 3 FRPs. We can upgrade at center, maybe get Gafford or something.
I just think we are in such a strong position this summer. The team with the most cap space and the best project to sell to FAs while in an ideal timeline to build a roster from scratch specifically to maximize Luka.
Wasting that by going all-in on a 32 year old (by December) superstar and a 42 year old legend that are not ideal fits to your own superstar doesn't look to me as the best strategy

 

Yeah, people keep wanting to improperly slot these guys. People seem to disregard perimeter defensive roles and spacing a lot.

 

"People"

 

LOL. It's a message board. Everybody has their own ideas, and that's a good thing! There are several different approaches. With that said, I feel like Lebron will be back as our 4 next year. And, I'm fine with that. He has played great in the off-ball role. But, this doesn't ideally slot our defensive players, since Luka would have to continue defending shifty 3's. Lebron and Reaves would be slotted appropriately, though, although still not great defensively. But, if we get elite rim-protection at the 5, and bolster the overall perimeter defense (i.e. bring Smart back as the 1, and get another playable defensive wing, like Ellis or Dort), we could help cover up for the defensive deficiencies of having three below-average defenders, with one of them playing out of position. That's why a great rim-protector is key to help pick up the defense when our perimeter defenders get beat off the dribble. I don't think we could afford to just go with Ayton and Hayes for another season as our bigs.

 

So we are expecting to sign Ellis and Watson into cap space, and keep all 3 FRP? Now that's interesting, I have my doubts about Ellis as the primary defender in the backcourt, but I like Watson replacing Rui, because he's more athletic. What are the contract numbers that you have in mind for Watson and Ellis? I said above that I don't think either, would be as expensive as reputed, but I expected to give up something for Watson. If we keep all the picks, trading 1FRP for Missi satisfies the desire for another young guy. Preferably a future first and drafting another kid with the 26 pick. I can get with that idea.

 

An example of awkward fitting that could some-how work is the Giannis idea. It takes some serious gymnastics. We could end up with a starting unit of Smart/Luka/James/Giannis/Turner. It would be really rough with Luka having to defend shooting guards, and Lebron small forwards. But, we would have an elite defender in Giannis, who could guard multiple positions, and also an elite rim-protector (still) in Myles Turner to man the paint. Still hard to tell how that would even work on defensively. Also, spacing is still rough though, I know Turner is a stretch 5, but still. Again, a deal like this is really threading the needle in multiple ways, and just can't be counting on to happen. Some folks are just fixated on certain scenarios and not only shut down other options, but ridicule others for their ideas lol.

 

I think it's possible if Lebron takes a severe pay-cut. Sign Ellis for 16-18 million, and then offer Watson 28-32 million. It would probably be more likely that we send Denver at least one future 1st in a sign-and-trade, so we don't have to wait for the guy to sign. Another idea though is a pre-arranged agreement with Lebron. Watson is also a Klutch client. In this scenario, Lakers already inked Ellis to say, 18 million; and then they sign Watson to a descending offer-sheet starting at say, 30 million. They tell Lebron to wait and see if the offer gets matched. If Denver doesn't match, then Lebron signs for the vet minimum. I guess in this scenario, Smart signs with the room-exception. Can't forget about Smart, we need to prioritize him too. If Denver matches, then the Lakers could simply give that 30 million to Lebron. Lakers could essentially have Lebron and his "understudy" for at least one more season. An ideal scenario would be that we open free-agency with a sign and trade like, Knecht + 2031 1st + 2033 2nd for Watson. We open up a little extra cap-room by dumping off Knecht.