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

If Reaves decides to leave, we get an additional 20.9 million to work with. Could be an interesting turn of events. Could use around 35 million or so the offer Watson a poison pill contract, or acquire him in a sign and trade for some draft capital. If the Lakers really like Watson, they could go this route. Watson actually has the ability to be that secondary ball handler. Might not be ready to do so yet, but Lebron could help get him there. Worse scenario, you could get a Quentin Grimes. I know he isn't as good as Austin, but he is a better defender, and a better off-ball shooter, athlete, and can operate as an additional ball handler. That slot could also be used to absorb players(s) like a Suggs, or maybe even a Jarrett Allen. Either Rui or Smart might end up willing to take the room exception if push comes to shove.

 

or...we could get shut out of an already weak FA market and be out a top-35 nba player for our troubles.

 

Yeah but the "upside" of that also is Alex Caruso Blunder Part Deux blows the doors off at the box office in Laker Nation. With his willingness also to take less than max available at his years.

 

Honesty think this series is pretty even if Luka happened to paly. That moves AR down one step in terms of OKC's focus and eliminates a lot of trash minutes from Kennard, Jake, Vando.

Lakers have found something with Smart, Ayton, Hayes, and Rui - add in Luka, AR, Lebron. That is very good 7 man but then the drop off this the Lakers hard.

OKC lose Jay Williams and they frankly look better? They can get minutes to guys like mccain or whoever seems to have it going while you lose Luka you go to players where it feels like it's a miracle if they do anything.

I would make a hard push ofr an OKC player archetype like Cason Wallace - Ayo seems like a great fit. I'm not enamored with Ellis as his ability to play switch defense I really question
Its a big step but you need to move on from the Jake and Vando types to a Wiggins or Ayo like player and this roster makes a whole more sense. Kennard becomes your 9th man

I don't know if it's possible because Ayton clearly has played himself into a contract that is worth an average starting center contract, and you have to bring back Lebron and Smart for this to work. And it's going to be hard to replace what Rui brings. So that leaves you with the ideal off-season is getting a peyton ellis or ayo to take over the Smart/Vando role without losing much of anything else - tough waters to navigate.

 

You gotta bring Rui back. As I stated he performs in the postseason. What we got him for nothing? A steal. You gotta make sure you’re getting that 18 point to 20 point a game production. With defense. He stays.

Lebron you bring him back. It will be his choice more than the Lakers and it looks like he’s coming back. You don’t just find that production when you let that walk out the building.

try to get Peyton Watson.

and bring Austin Reaves back at a reasonable price.

No nobody is trading Austin Reaves for Jalen Suggs. That would be dumb. Jalen Suggs is a cool name. But I need a guy to get me buckets. I’ll figure out Marcus smart and Keon Ellis for that role.

and then the others just try to bring them back.

Ayton looks like he’s going to opt in.

trade for Nic Claxton.

if Luka played this would be a different series.

Reddick really f***ed up towards the end of the season when he let Luka and Reaves play like that. So much usage.

Honestly that game we played against OKC on April 2nd. The starting lineup should’ve been

Bronny James Luke Kennard Jared Vanderbilt Dalton Knect and Jaxson Hayes.

it should’ve been a maintenance game. No need to play them. No need to show them anything against a potential playoff opponent.

but Reddick learns and I’m sure he’ll learn from that. Too much production.

well hope to see Luka back soon.

as for moves just acquire players who help us winning and in our window.

 

I like Jarret Allen. He’s a very active player.

 

Go over the apron; all the way to the 2nd if needed.

 

interestingly, i'm not sure if there's a good way to go over the first apron this summer?

it would probably require smart and ayton both opting in, then using bird rights to keep everyone else, perhaps even s&ting for expensive players.

like, not going to happen, but like dual S&Ting rui and reaves for giannis+ is maybe a way to do that.

but there are a lot of mechanisms to try and prevent that. now, assuming we sign some longer term deals this summer, there will be ways to expand the payroll a bit after that.

 

You guys are better at this cap stuff than me..but I think SVTR threw out an idea on one of these threads.

 

It’s actually hard to get as high as we would like with the new rules, they kind of discourage things with the trade options you have. You most likely would have to max the cap space and then resign your guys with bird rights to the second apron. Most teams achieve it by having multiple rookies go to maxes.

One thing we could do from my previous option is try to bring back Smart on a 120% raise and use the MLE on a player. So like this:

Luka: 49.5
Reaves: 35
Lebron: 24
Rui: 16 (4 year deal with 4th year team option)
Player X: 15.1 (3 year MLE)
Vando: 12.4
Kennard: 10 (non bird resign)
Ayton: 9.7 (120% non bird raise)
Smart: 6.5 (120% non bird raise)
Hayes: 6.5 (2 year deal)
Jake: 6
Knecht: 4.2
Kleber: 2.5
Bronny: 2.3
Adou: 2.1

If you can get Ayo Dosunmu for the MLE and a Josh Hart in a trade as an example, you’ve done pretty good.

Luka / Kennard / Bronny
Reaves / Smart
Dosunmu / Hart / Adou
Lebron / Rui / Jake
Ayton / Hayes / Kleber

Not sure how likely that is, but you add one by trade and one by the MLE while retaining everyone else.

 

no way dosunmu goes for mle, but you can use mle to absorb salaries in trade now, so if we find someone making less than that...

but mle use hardcaps at the first apron, of course, which is part of why slick's second apron dreams are unlikely this year.

 

Smart's not going to take 6.5

Ayton probably also opts out and takes more, he has been solid in the playoffs and the market for Centers is very thin.

 

I would say lets rebuild with draft picks, etc., but we are not doing that. We could go with a 100% run-it-back patchwork approach or some sort of hybrid approach. I just don't think it's time for Lebron to move on. He is playing at too high of a level, and even if we wanted to go our separate ways, it would be a bad look, and not signing Lebron at essentially a 50% discount or more is arguably bad asset management. The hybrid part comes in with potentially moving on from Reaves. Simply renouncing him ads value in the form of an additional 20.9 million in cap room. So, we don't lose him for nothing. Signing him for 30 million or less is also arguably good value for what he is. Of course, trading him and getting value back is also a potential scenario.

Idea: Reaves to Utah for Kessler + 2027 Lakers 1st

PG: Luka
SG: Smart
SF: Hachimura
PF: James
C: Kessler

Kessler's defense helps make up for Luka, Rui, and Lebron's weak defense. Kessler is also a big-time lob-threat and rebounder. We get our 2027 pick back, fully unprotected. We are now armed with 4 tradable picks. Kessler being a young player, and us getting our pick back, while staying competitive is a good move in a hybrid approach. A disruption like this could help reinvigorate things.

 

Imo, minimum 9.4 million room exception for Smart. Just that small amount of optimism contaminates your whole plan.

 

The things you read around here ahah this forum is a great social experiment, recency bias is SO strong

AR is a scrub and there's even people conjuring letting him walk. Signing Bron and letting AR walk is absolutely insane.

On the other hand, Rui is an all-star all of a sudden.

Rui, Ayton and Smart are definitely showing they can be trusted in postseason.
On the other hand AR, Kennard and LaRavia are on the other end of the stick and have been underwhelming

I think playoff performance is really important for what we are trying to build and these performances matter. But they CAN'T be the only data points considered in decision-making this summer. There's a whole season of data and there's a big matchup context for these performances. And a very special context (Luka injured) that helps Rui and hurts AR, for example.
Rui was pretty underwhelming during the season, AR was at all-star level during a good stretch, Ayton shown he's really inconsistent and Kennard had multiple good games. All that matters too

Bottom line is that the decision makers are aware of this and so far I've trusted Rob's readings. I'm also hopeful of Mark and his team judgement so I think we won't overreact to these performances and give them the right importance that they have

This is where I am with each player:
AR - hope for 35 but ok for the max at 42
Bron - hope he walks but ok if below 20 or whatever exact number after adding 2/3 defenders
Smart - hope for below 10M with wink-wink raise next season, but ok for short contract at MLE or longer at 12ish
Kennard/Rui - hope to keep them below 10, but ok if they leave
Ayton - hope for opt-in but ok if below MLE (not really sure with him, gotta assess further)

 

Trades also have an effective hard cap, if you go over the apron you have to match salaries too closely - within 10%, and you can’t aggregate players, send cash etc etc.

If we want to improve by trade, we should stick below 202m so we can get that extra 7.5m coming back.

I think it’s highly unlikely we get Ayo anyway, same with Watson now that Denver flamed out. We could split up our MLE between Thybulle and Ellis as an example. That brings in two 3&D guys and sets us up for a trade at the deadline. Send out Jake, Vando and Knecht for Wiggins now. That’s:

Luka / Ellis / Bronny
Reaves / Smart / Kennard
Wiggins / Thybulle
Lebron / Rui / Adou
Ayton / Hayes / Kleber

 

We have to kind of look at the offseason from what should players get and what is available for them.

I don’t think there is the MLE available for Smart out there. Mainly the room exception. So if you can convince him for a bigger raise the season after, maybe he does take 6.5m. Otherwise you give him 10m from the MLE and go for Thybulle/Ellis for the rest.

That’s still adding one player via exception and one via trade. I just think we’re not that far away. We need one starting wing and one defensive POA off the bench. Having Wiggins and Thybulle last night, we probably win to be honest.

 

I agree with you on everything except hoping LeBron walks. I don’t see the logic, he is still incredible on the floor as a 2nd option. Heck he makes a great 3rd option too. That guy should play as long as he likes, he’ll still be close to an all star in 2 years.

 

Letting Reaves walk would be crazy. You won’t sign a player of Reaves’ quality in free agency. It happens once in half a decade.

 

How about Mitchell Robinson, and Coby White, instead of 30M for Watson? Let Luke and Maxi walk. Then package Vando and Dalton for PJ Washington? Then look to the draft for the best talent available?

We add 3 playoffs rotation caliber players at 3 separate positions. I keep throwing out Dalton, but Dallas might be interested in Hayes instead. Short term deals with usable players, while getting off of Washington's longer deal.