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

Yeah it's tough because it's the Clippers. They might be the last team that would want to help us. Might have to over pay a little. I suppose if I woukd trade the 1st for three 2nds, I should be willing to trade it for a player like Dunn, on the reasonable contract. Ellis might end up being the only option available.

 

Nothing is set in stone, but here is what the Athletic reported:

• Bulls (up to $68 million)
• Wizards ($50 million) - I believe this is gone now with the addition of Trae and AD - will have the room
• Clippers (up to $50 million) - this will be gone since they got Garland and Mathurin, likely to have the room
• Jazz ($45 million) - this will be gone as they added JJJ - will have room
• Lakers ($38 million to $47 million)
• Nets ($36 million to $44 million)
• Hawks ($23 million to $28 million) - also gone if they want to resign CJ

So likely cap space is Chicago, Brooklyn and the Lakers

Full $15.1 million nontaxpayer MLE: Hornets, Trail Blazers, Spurs, Bucks, Boston

Most other teams will have the TPMLE, I don’t know who else could renounce key guys and get the MLE.

Hornets: don’t need a guard
Portland: have jrue, scoot, sharpe and dame
Spurs: also don’t need guards
Bucks: probably going into a rebuild and will not have the MLE
Boston: not sure what they do but I think the Smart bridge is burned, I also believe they’ll go for a higher profile MLE target then Kennard since they already have Pritchard…

I doubt Chicago and Nets go for either guy. So I think room for Kennard is the most he’ll get and probably same for Smart. The money just isn’t out there.

 

So let's just say that we can reup Smart, Ayton, and Kennard at 11M or 12M apiece. Austin 30M LeBron 20M

What do our cap numbers look like then? What's the cap next season again?

Edit. We can go over the cap to sign Austin,Luke and Rui.. what's the contract length and amount stipulation?

 

Jalen Williams just had a hamstring injury.

Not sure if it's serious or not but didn't look as bad as Luka's.

 

I'm sure some people here won't like to hear this, but Caruso sure loves playing and begging for fouls now.



What's booker supposed to do? i guess his shooting motion is unnatural now. I guess sticking out your face while out of position is a valid play now!



Now Caruso begs for a technical foul over...idk and gets it.

 

Jalen Williams reagrivates Hamstring you never know with the playoffs.

now OKC could be looking at Luka LeBron Reaves. Rejuvenated Smart and Kennard and Hachimura and Ayton

vs. Shai and Holmgren.

like my boy said the Lakers go 10 deep. Legit good bench.

 

f*** the NBA that technical was b*******. Why is a game reffed like that. It looks fixed betting. That’s what Booker was saying.

this is the same league that gifts the Mavs Cooper Flagg the next LeBron after Dallas traded Luka.

 

f*** the NBA that technical was b*******. Why is a game reffed like that. It looks fixed betting. That’s what Booker was saying.

this is the same league that gifts the Mavs Cooper Flagg the next LeBron after Dallas traded Luka.

 

I’ll put my buisness hat on The OKC Thunder are bad for the NBA it’s a bad look. They are boring. Nobody cares about the Thunder and OKC.

 

Losing Jalen would be pretty bad for OKC, it would open the door for us if we were at full strength. In order of importance:

Luka - Shai
LeBron - Chet
Reaves - Hartenstein
Smart - Ajay
Ayton - Dort
Kennard - Wallace
Rui - Caruso
Hayes - Iso Joe
Jake - Jaylin

Jalen Williams adds another all star to a stacked team and puts them over the top. If he is out, it’s a much more competitive series.

 

Saw the Wemby face plant, bounce and hit again for the first time on the news last night and it was awful. I hope he’s OK and quickly. Double yikes.

 

To go over the cap on re-signings, your players will count towards the cap via cap hold, so you don't free up cap space.
Rui cap hold is at 27M (crazy number don't know why), Kennard 13.9 and AR 20.9.
You have to renounce them to free that money, meaning you lose bird rights and can only re-sign them using cap space or exceptions.
I think we renounce everyone except AR.

We can also sign them to a lower salary so only that salary counts toward the cap (i.e if Kennard signs for 10M, only 10 counts towards the cap instead of the 13.9)

https://www.silverscreenandroll.com...season-luka-doncic-austin-reaves-lebron-james

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/los-angeles-lakers/cap/_/year/2026


Regarding Ellis, I understand people being off him, he's not yet got an established role that warrants any big interest to pay big money.
I don't think he gets the full MLE money. I'm expecting he will be available between the TPMLE and the room exception, so around 6-8 million. Probably a 1+1 with PO or something like that so he has the chance to re-up it soon. And I really like him at that value

I wouldn't pay him more than 10. It's a big if and we did that with Vando because he had shown potential in that small window after we got him in the Russ trade but it never pan out and it's actually hurting us now. So I would avoid such a gamble considering we have so many other routes to round out the roster.

I do think we really need to add a POA that is quick to pair with Smart. Those 2 + a wing defender like Watson/Dort/Eason gives us defensive cover for any matchup and allows Luka/AR to always get more easier defensive assignments which has proven to not only makes us better defensively but also on offense as they have more energy on that end + good defense generates better offensive looks

Luka, AR, Smart, 2 wings defensive guys, 2 centers, Kennard and LaRavia is the skeleton of a deep roster

 

they're actually pretty similar, and i love both. i don't think dunn is gettable, and ellis is a UFA. as for the salary discrepancy, dunn locked himself into a cheap deal three years ago when the clips picked him up off the scrapheap after he was a failed lotto pick. if he was hitting UFA, he'd be getting a bigger number than ellis, probably. but he's 32 and ellis is 26.

if pika's right and ellis can be had for sub-mle, we should totally do that. i think his offense will look way better here than it has this year (and likely better than it has at any point). he's going to be paid sixth man money, and we'd use him as a starter who plays sixth man minutes, imo.

i'll be curious to see what rui gets, as to me, his market should be lower than the other two. he's big but doesn't really play big. he can shoot, but he's not a movement shooter, just a catch and shoot or pull up. i could imagine a world in which he's looking at tpmles and could possibly return to us on an even lower number in order to preserve bird rights. i could also see an outgoing s&t, though that's pretty tricky given his big hold.

it would have been WAY better to get ellis at the deadline, which was why i was willing to offer picks for him. that said, i disagree that gpII and thybulle are the same. thybulle has played in like 40% of games over the past three years and gpII is a vando-level shooter. i would gladly take either for the minimum, but depending on them as heavy lifters during the regular season would be really, really bad, imo. we need a POA defender (besides smart), period.

pika beat me to it, but also go find some of svtzr's posts on this. short answer is that the only to sign those guys all to say, 12m per is to go under the cap. you then have reaves's hold (21), lebron (20), luka (50), vando (12), knecht (4), laravia (6), bronny/thiero (5 total) + that 36m. that's roughly 154m in a 166m cap. you also have cap holds for a few roster spots, which takes you down to basically having essentially two room exception (~9m) slots.

factor in here that you lost rui (who's somehow playing 40mpg in the playoffs for us) for nothing, and you see why it's so tough to thread the needle without guys making substantial sacrifices. if lebron takes 15, kennard takes the room exception, and ayton opts in, you've now gained 11m and gotten a 20m slot (which could be used with a pick, vando, and knecht to maybe bring in a 30m dollar player?). if smart could be convinced to opt in, that's another 6m available.

i can't fathom why the league decided to give SGA the harden treatment. at least houston was a bigger market. and maybe the point was to give the crap markets (and the fans and media that hate the lakers and knicks) hope, which the nba feels will sell the product (e.g., blazers fans seeing okc and being like "that could be us!").

whatever it is, it's running its course, as it's getting harder for the media to just brush off the differential treatment. they carried water for harden for about 4 years or so before the cracks started forming. we're on year 3 of SGA being treated like literally no other nba player.

 

Some of those teams might try to steal Smart or Kennard. Might have to pay them 16M each and be done with it.

 

Still, way too early, but the way things are shaping up:

• Pay Kennard and Smart 15-16m each, just to make sure we outbid the MLE teams
• Pay Lebron the same 15-16m, for the sake of fairness, dignity and respect, hierarchy, narrative, etc.
• Lakers would have about 8 million left
• Lakers would also have the 9.3 million Room Exception left
• Lakers could bring back both Hayes and Rui with these slots. But, I suggest we try to get a POA defender/shooter.

Potential ways to get POA defender/shooter:

• Sign Ellis, Goodwin, Thybulle, or Melton with either the Room-Exception or 8 million dollar slot
• Trade #25 and Vanderbilt to New Orleans for Jones
• Trade #25 + 2031 1st + 2033 2nd + 2030 swap + 2032 swap to New Orleans for Jones and Missi
• Trade #25 to Clippers for Dunn
• Trade #25 to New Orleans for #58 + 2028 and 2029 Spurs 2nds - to free up more cap room
• Trade Vanderbilt + Knecht + #25 +2031 1st to New York for Hart

Just have to kick the tires on some deals. The trade scenarios involving Vanderbilt could allow us to keep Rui for that 8 million dollar slot or 9.3 million room excption, with Hayes getting part of the other. They would push LaRavia and Thiero further down on the depth chart, but that's okay. LaRavia is a very good defender, but he's a wing defender, not a POA defender, and his shot has been very shaky. Redick doesn't seem to like less experienced players much, so Thiero might sit another year. He might not get a shot until Lebron retires.

 

Toyota's 7-foot-2 robot drained hoops in front of 8,400 fans in Tokyo

 

Pfffft … Rui can do that. Does it rebound?

 

just the usual BS from OKC

 

it's just so odd how only a few years ago there was all this talk about finally eliminating this kind of BS and then here comes OKC and the league suddenly just decided to forget about it

it's not a good thing when your best team is completely unwatchable because of stuff like this