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

To my understanding, the Warriors and Cavs will only have the 6 million or so tax payer MLE, unless they do some significant cap gymnastics. So from a financial standpoint we would in theory only have to match that. But, just to not even go there, I would be willing to pay him 25m if needed. Full MLE money (15m) is a sensible number to use for planning purposes, imo. But again, it's important that we allow the guy some agency in this. Narrative is something that seems to be important to him imo, so I think or would make sense for the narrative to be that he took less money to retain player x, and sign free agent y, instead of the market dried up for him and we paid him what others could pay him. With this narrative, I think there is a good chance that he will take a significant paycut down to 6 million. But it needs to be in a way where the narrative is that LeBron had agency in thai decision. From an on the court standpoint, there really is no better option at forward through free agency, anyway. Apart from that, it's the absolute right thing to do to treat Lebron with dignity and respect. Pay him a fair amount and not low ball him. If he wants to take less for the benefit of the team (and his reputation and legacy, then great.

 

All fair points, just different views in some. Really appreciate the read.
Only remark is how do we retain Bron at +20-25mil, retain Smart and Kennard and add a 30mil player? You may have laid out here already but I may have missed it.
As for the 20mil guy, I guess it's with Vando, Knecht and this year 1st? That's 3 players for 1 trade, 2 of them bad assets. I just don't see how we get an impactful player with that package, but would be great!

That brings me to a point I've seen here about using our future 1sts to trade Vando and Knecht. I hate that. I would avoid as much as possible using our 1sts to offset Vando/Knecht perceived negative value. We should use those 1sts to elevate our package, not make it less bad. See what I mean?
For example, trading those guys for Hart makes no sense to NY. Even if we threw all our 3 picks, they probably reject it. And it's still an awful proposal by us.

I rather try to find a team that sees some value in Vando or Knecht and has a win now player they don't need or some guy who's blocked by a young star the team has. Find those guys where we can send Vando/Knecht without them being perceived as negative, even if throwing a 1st as sweetener. But in any case, it will be hard to turn those 2 guys into a starting caliber player, probably more a 7/8 guy on a contending team

Yeah I think the main point is that we see Bron differently. I don't think Luka/AR/Bron is a winning formula for a title. It can be if Bron is the 5th/6th highest salary, not if he's the 3rd/4th. I still think we lack 2-way players and elite defense to be able to win the West. And I don't think we can get with Bron being in that 25mil range.

That's the divergence factor in this convo.

But for me it's really just a matter of salary and opportunity cost. With no money involved, 1000% I want Bron with us. He is better than any player we can bring this summer. I just think we have 2 to 3 other priorities first to address before we commit money to Bron.

I don't even think we can build a title team this summer unless we absolutely knock it out of the park. But I do think we can be closer if we don't go the Bron route, just for the selection of players that address our holes and flexibility moving forward.
OKC and Spurs have had several years with multiple picks to build these teams with a lot of cost-controlled assets and multiple summers doing moves specifically designed to fit their stars.
We had a couple of buyouts, a BAE and a Gabe trade to put around Luka so far. It's a world of difference

 

On another note....I think people underestimate how much playing with his son, has made LeBron adjust his leadership style. My biggest complaint about LeBron on the court here, was his subtle way of putting guys that were struggling some, on the spot.

Of course he would say that he was just showing confidence in them. Meh..I feel like it was his way, of getting certain players off the court myself.

He would ignore AD sometimes, in order to specifically force the ball to another player, for a shot. That came off as " Here! Show me something!" to me. That can mess with a player's confidence if they don't convert. And he always had that little head shake, with a look towards the bench if they missed.

I didn't like that crap, and he's knocked a lot of that off since Bronny came here IMO. However he back slides on occasion. In our last game, he rotated the ball to Bronny, and he hesitated instead of taking the shot, and James shot him that look like..." OK son, if you keep that up, I'm going to have your a** on the sidelines too!"

 

Yeah, those are great points. Seeing his own son in the same situation as the Rui's and the Knecht's of the world. It's another element that is probably humbling for him in a way. I think that playing with Bronny, and just his family in general are huge reasons why he will likely stay in Los Angeles. Him signing with a team like Cleveland, and then asking the Lakers to cut Bronny in a pre-arranged signing with Cleveland would just look messy.

 

They're quoting an account with 100 followers.

It seems like it's trending that way, but the "official" is premature

This is where it's currently at according to boots on the ground

If that happens, that removes the .0001% chance Bron considers them. He's not going to play for an unstable team with potentially a college coach just for a front seat to Steph's retirement tour.


Also will likely mean some roster upheaval from them

 

Another “fragile a**” star out for rest of playoffs ANT

https://twitter.com/briancaldnba/status/2046592494784176371?s=46&t=VpASWooOp-c0BfbMzXjnIw

 

Yeah, so was i. Between the statistics of him playing with Luka, and the talk of possibly finishing with Cleveland, I thought he was very likely gone. I was suggesting replacing him with Watson, and going and getting an Ellis or Dort,and drafting a big.

 

it's a parody account lol he's fine.

 

Haha lol.

 

Lebron was coming off of the first knee injury of his career. Add that to the fact, that he's started out choppy, in every season he's been here. I think some of that stuff was just an overaction.

Luka had been called out about his conditioning and Austin was heading into a contract year, it should have been expected, for them to come out of the gate firing on all cylinders, while it took longer for James to ramp up. I think the contract jazz, just hyped things up a couple of notches

 

You officially have all the bases covered so you could say I told you so.

 

Yeah Reddick should’ve really sat Luka and Reaves some minutes down the stretch. That was ridiculous.

 

JJ better have a deep playoff run next season, Kerr should start getting bored around then, with all that time off.

 

We’re going to have about 54m in cap space when we renounce Lebron, Rui and Hayes (who we bring back on a minimum and pay more the following season).

If Smart opts out, but Ayton opts in, we are at roughly 60m in cap space. At that point you go after a 30m FA like Watson, you give Lebron 20m, Smart 10m and Kennard the room MLE.

That’s added 1 high level piece while retaining who we want too.

You can then take Vando and Knecht and use them to trade for a player in that 16-20m range. I’ve used the example of Hart in the case that the Knicks try and get Giannis and need extra firsts to get the deal over the line. The Knicks might eat Vando to get Giannis and Knecht goes to the Bucks that are rebuilding - maybe all it costs is this years first in a very good draft, or maybe 2 firsts and we get a second back?

Just as easily, we could just go for Bobby Portis and he probabaly costs a first. There is about 20 options in that price range that we could trade for or sign and trade for.

We desperately need to convert any dead cap on our roster into playable roster guys. This year we had Vando, Gabe, Kleber and Knecht earning almost 37m. We saw what turning Gabe into Luke has done. I want to do more of that.

 

The biggest change in LeBron this year has been deferring. But not to Luka, he already did that last year but he went from the second option to the third behind Reaves. To me, that’s one of the most incredible things I’ve seen a star do.

Part of that is Austin having an all star level start to the season and LeBron playing his way back into form after Sciatica and his knee injury. SK brings honestly good points with Reaves’ matchup resilience and it’s why I want to retain LeBron. We need all the talent we can get, adding a 5th stagger to this team and a 6th man I think gets us over the hump if we bring back our core.

 

Yeah, that's a solid plan. Basically replacing Rui with a better defender and arguably better athlete, without loosing too much of the shooting. We just need Watson to be 35% from 3, and increase his 3 pt volume a little bit. Additionally, Watson is a much better long term piece, that still has higher potential at his age 24 season next season.

You could argue that Thiero would be like adding a new player, since he didn't play much. I expect him to pick up some of LaRavia's minutes.

I'm not much of fan of Portis for us. He is a 4 that could shoot and rebound, and also play some 5. The rebounding would help us. But, he is neither a lob-threat nor rim protector. I'm not sure how he is at switching. If, he's good at that, then I get it. But I'm thinking we might as well go for Turner at that point.

If we don't get anything for Vando, DK and picks, then that's fine too.

 

I don't think we have that much. The 54m is already with Smart renouncing. The image below considers AR cap hold.

It doesn't seem much but then where do you take the 6 million from? You can't take from Watson, even the 30 may not be the magic number and we may need to go 32, 33 or wtv so Denver can't match. You can't take from Smart because he would get 4M. That's where Bron comes and gets 14/15M.

Absolutely agree to transform the dead parts in a rotation player, it's killing us every year, mentioned it before too.
But won't be easy. I can't see us getting a Hart, Portis or whatever for Vando/Knecht to be honest, even with a Giannis trade. I'm sure there's teams out there who are also in the market for those players and have a better package.
For example, Ayo went to Minny for basically nothing. But we still couldn't match that "nothing". We don't have 4 seconds nor a young player with some untapped potential like Dillingham. And it was for a expiring Dosunmu in the deadline.
I would love to get a rotation player from our death parts, but we need to be mindful it will be a hell of a pull. We need to find a team that sees something in Vando, Knecht or Ayton

But I understand your point. I think it's quite optimistic, but yeah upgrading from Rui to Watson + adding a rotation player would be a good summer. Maybe snag 1 or 2 vet mins that can play.
I'd still prefer building a more defensive minded role players around Luka/AR, but I won't be mad if that's the outcome


Btw, great discussion in this thread with different views being explained from opposite perspectives. Kudos to all involved!