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

based on the plans thrown around so far, 20 seems to be the ceiling of what we could do while also making a significant upgrade. 10-15 might make two upgrades possible. this is why i keep saying he should be open to taking less and picking up money on the back end. could be as simple as we give him the 1+1 this summer with the idea that may opt in and retire after next year (i.e., the marc gasol special). we need the money this year and can afford to be way over the cap/first apron the following year, imo.

 

I think they have $45-50 million to play with assuming LeBron signs for $15-20 million and Reaves signs for a $200m contract?

TBH, I don't think Reaves is worth a full max. He's got holes in his game where it doesn't signify automatic max to me. He's been vastly underpaid for his NBA career so I'd like to see him get paid but $200 million instead of $241 million max would be where I think he should land at.

So let's assume Ayton opts in and Smart opts out. That means you need to try and get Kennard + Hayes + Smart and find a way to replace or keep Rui. $45-50 million should get that done, no? And you get your upgrade by trading Vando and picks for guys like Bobby Portis?

 

I don't think, with his situation HERE, that he loves, Reaves is viewing himself as needing MAX money either, especially if he didn't get the chance to shake the detractor's gripes about his deficiencies in the playoffs, allegedly .... this year. Same sort of thinking, maybe, as what we hope with LeBron. Structure the contract lower initially to help team building and back load it?

 

what i mean is that i'm not sure vando/picks for portis is enough. we need another starting caliber/SMOY type player. they typically run about 25-30m per unless they're on a rookie contract (and thus would be unavailable to us). like a younger jrue holiday, derrick white, aaron gordon level player. jalen suggs, maayyybe wiggins if you squint, maybe watson if he keeps his trajectory.

and there may be ways to split the difference and move vando/knecht/picks for a suggs type with that leaving enough to re-sign all the key players from this year. but i still think that caps lebron closer to 20 than 25 or 30 or the 35 he's probably worth.

 

I think Bobby Portis instead of Vando, re-sign everyone, draft some ready to play senior college dudes, and run it back.

This is a 60 win Lakers team if everyone was healthy all season. We saw how much of a difference Luke Kennard made and he wasn't a big name highly sought after player. You put a guy like Bobby Portis in there, everything changes for the Lakers.

At the end of the day, every team has their own issues whether it's salary cap, restrictions, tax apron, etc., Lakers are in a better spot than I would say 80% of the league. Just a few moves. Lakers gotta draft a guy like Josh Hart or Caruso rather than trying to overpay for these type of players.

 

I would offer him to Minnesota for McDaniel and Dante DIvencenzo. You diva up the picks anyway you like.If they agree that’s a much more Luka centric team

 

What's great if we pick up a couple of good - great already NBA player defensive specialists, who have "some" offensive game to develop because they're younger, not established expensive 3 and D guys is that we have plenty of offense and shooting now to cover for them. And equally great NOW with Luka, LeBron, AR, Luke and Rui who are PROVEN in Lakers uniforms and redundant smart players to cover Luka when injured or off the floor with rotations running the offense in AR (near mirror style and effectiveness) LeBron from mid post area and now amazingly we have Luke off the bench as well. I guarantee Walter is not giving up AR's all around skills on this team to become more Luka centric. We most certainly can improve our depth and defensive depth / rotation level player depth this off season without giving up AR. LeBron likely not much longer and nice as Luke looks he is not in AR's league running this team with Luka not on the floor.

 

I've thought about that trade in the past, I don't think either team does it. If LeBron was 3 years younger I would.

 

Fixed first part and even if the second part AR still would not want to go play and live in frigid MN, either, for half the year. Everyone seems to think he's going to turn his nose up to a not maxed out first year contract rather than be open to a home town discount same as AC wanted to do. And has stated as much.

 

They don’t have time to wait/hope some experiment works out.I find it strange that you wouldn’t want one of the best 3-D players in the league along with a better defensive shooter next to Luka. They seem to be doing Ok play making without AR on floor now.Like I said I’d offer and see what the answer is.It’s win win in either case as far as I’m concerned

 

We have bird rights on AR, so he signs after we build out the rest of the team. Him taking less next year doesn’t do anything for us building the team. The only way his contract helps is if he signs the max in year 1 and then it’s descending after that. But why would he?

As for cap space we have about 54 million if we renounce Rui, Lebron and Hayes. If Smart opts out, it’s roughly $60m plus a $9m room exception to use after our cap space. We also have Vando and Knecht that make $16m and 3 first round picks.

So you got to try and bring back Lebron, Smart, Luke and Hayes in that $60 + $9 while also bringing on another piece.

In my opinion Vando and Knecht aren’t very appetising for anyone, so you either have to find a bad contract that a rebuilding team wants to get out from (example: Turner in Milwaukee after Giannis leaves?) or help a team get a player like Giannis by forcing them to eat Vando for draft picks while sending Knecht to the team getting all the picks.

Suggs would be fun. Portis would be decent. Hart is an amazing glue guy and would supercharge our bench, he is like a second Marcus Smart that rebounds like a demon. Turner is possible. If we give up enough draft picks maybe the Pelicans do something or Chicago or Brooklyn.

 

Talk about experiments vs proven skills we have right now .... what if one of or both those guys get to LA and can't shoot? Not even their specialties. Happens all the time here until we finally got some who can. We can put 3 or 4 extremely gifted offensive players who are not turnstiles and very smart team defenders always on the floor with young POA/Wing NBA bulldogs with room to grow on offense. Get/develop another two defensive studs to come off the bench behind Marcus (who slots everyone properly in the starting lineup) and LeBron.

 

For all the same reasons we've been talking about he's likely open to team friendlier deal, however it is structured.

 

It'll help with luxury tax and possibly trading Reaves if he doesn't pan out though

 

You do the trade and all that is immediately built in.LaRavia becomes the 4th guy off the bench. And you still have cap space to sign someone (probably a Big) or trade with Vando/DK and picks

 

Yeah we (scratch "we" .... some of "you people" ) are back into last summer's sittin' around the campfire you know whatting .... thinking they are going to trade AR for role players better fitting Luka when he has his own non-iron man issues. That's my prediction.

 

I hear Gabe Vincent fell a few votes short.

 

Oh I don’t believe they are going to trade AR.Im just pointing out an uncomfortable truth that they could become better faster if they did.

 

Funny enough, LeBron might be the most hot dog standable player on the planet. Even if it got found out, like, of course he's worth $50 million to endorse us without doing any work. He's LeBron James!

 

DRAFT DAY TRADE
Lakers send #25 to New Orleans for #58, 2028 Spurs 2nd, and 2029 Spurs 2nd. Lakers free up and additional 3.2 million in cap-room, and stock up on some future draft capital. Also get someone for a potential two-way contract project. Pelicans ad and immediate 1st-round pick.

FREE AGENCY
(1) Smart: 12-million
(2) Kennard: 15-million
(3) Ellis : 17-million
(4) Lebron: 15-million
(5) Hayes: 7-million (Room-Exception) We have 2,368,700 left for potential in-season free agents, such as buy-out players.

PG: Luka (36) Reaves (12) Bronny Free Agent
SG: Reaves (24) Kennard (24) Free Agent
SF: Smart (24) Ellis (24) Vanderbilt
PF: James (32) Thiero (16) LaRavia
C: Ayton (30) Hayes (18) Free Agent

The only major change is, we replace Rui with Ellis. We would have done that swap at the trade deadline in a heart-beat. Ellis ads an additional 3 and D POA that has many of the similar "gritty" defensive traits that Smart has, and he happens to be a better shooter. Rui is a great shooter with size, but is not a good defender, and we have several large forwards already. In this scenario, we keep all of out future draft capital, and gain some more draft capital in the form of 2nd round picks. We keep our current team in tact, except for Rui, Kleber, and Smith Although, Smith could come back on a minimum. We upgrade our biggest need, which is getting a second Marcus Smart type of player. We have supposedly showed previous interest in Ellis.