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

Let’s go Showtime!! Hart all day!

Leaves us 2 draft picks and Vando so we could take back 20-23 million in another trade.

 

Well, he did get pushed in the back...then he jumped forward in heroic fashion, just to avoid getting a concussion from his naturally awkward falling motion.

 

Nice quote from the article

Communication is important to the players and having Mark do it directly is a good thing

 

I have OKC. They are better than last year

 

Or a similar trade with Miami for Wiggins, preferably with Vando also headed out. But we could send out the same package and use 10 million in cap room to absorb Wiggins. Depends on where Giannis is going.

 

yeah, it was a foul but that flop was something else

 

So we have Floppers built by the NBA vs Floppers built by tanking and the stupidity of the Flippers.
Great.
I will be rooting for the East in the Finals, unless it’s the Cavs (BeerdoMcFloppington).
If it’s the Cavs vs either OKC or Spurs, I won’t be rooting for anyone because they all have gained from flopping.
Great job, Alienboy- you have completely removed the past tiny shred of integrity that the NBA once had.
Yay for theatre!

 

I’ve been thinking about Peyton Watson again. I’m unfamiliar with poison pill contracts and how they work exactly. However, as far as I understand, we could offer PWat the following:

Year 1: 12m
Year 2: 25m
Year 3: 41m
Year 4: 41m

If Denver matches, they have to pay him the average annual value of that contract, which is 30m per year. That’s close enough to make it painful and they may let him go. While if they let him walk, we have cap flexibility for two years to build out our team before we balloon over the second apron and use our ownership group to pay the tax.

Could we not then do the same with Kessler or Duren?

 

Here is a scenario if we could utilise the poison pill contracts as above.

If we renounce everyone and everyone opts out we would have 67.6m in cap space:

Luka (49.5) / x / Bronny (2.3)
Reaves (20.9) / x / Knecht (4.2)
x / x / Jake (6)
x / Vando (12.4) / Adou (2.1)
x / x / x

Move 1: 67.6m cap space

• Draft night: trade Vando and/or Jake + Knecht + 2 firsts for a wing in a 3 team Giannis Trade (16-30m)
• This trade could be Hart (20.9) if it’s Knicks, Wiggins (30.2) if it’s Heat, Camara (18.1m) if it’s Portland, McDaniels (26.2) if it’s the Wolves etc
• I personally think it’s going to be the Knicks, Giannis has a new home there, it’s closest by flight to Greece where his wife and kids are living now and they have the ability to match salaries easily while still being a contender. We come in with draft picks for Hart, Knicks take Knecht and Bucks get 2 first round picks but eat Vando as they’re tanking now

Move 2: 63.3m left in cap

• Renounce Kennard & Hayes
• Offer Rui 15m per to match MLE money
• Offer LeBron 20m per
• Offer Hayes the vet min (2.5m counts against the cap only)

Move 3: 28.3m left in cap

• Day 1 FA: offer Watson and Duren poison pill contracts with an AAV of 30m starting at 12m for us

At this point we look like this:

Luka (49.5) / x / Bronny (2.3)
Reaves (20.9) / x / Jake (6)
Watson (12) / Hart (20.9)
Lebron (20) / Rui (15) / Adou (2.1)
Duren (12) / Hayes (2.5) / x

+ 1x incomplete roster charge at 1.3m

Move 4: Cap space exhausted

• Sign Smart to the 9.1m Room
• Sign Kleber to the vet min 5
• Sign one more vet min guard
• Re-sign Reaves to descending max (lower salary helps offset poison pill contracts in future years)

Final roster is:

Luka (49.5) / Vet Min (2.5) / Bronny (2.3)
Reaves (41) / Smart (9.1) / Jake (6)
Watson (12) / Hart (20.9)
Lebron (20) / Rui (15) / Adou (2.1)
Duren (12) / Hayes (2.5) / Kleber (2.5)

Total salary: 197.4m

 

Not sure if Reaves would sign a 5 year deal with the following years:

Year 1: 41
Year 2: 41
Year 3: 30
Year 4: 30
Year 5: 30 (player option)

If Lebron stays the next 2 years, and then his 20m cap spot comes off the books as Duren and Watson get 40m, and Reaves goes down to 30m, we could thread the needle and not have a huge tax bill to pay while retaining Luka, Reaves, Watson, Duren, Rui and Adou.

Reaves opts out in year 5 and we reward him with another solid contract.

This is the kind of tomfoolery I expect our new ownership group to operate at. They’ve shown they are very good at deferring salary and I’d like them to attempt that in the NBA, even if it involves future promises that are technically frowned upon.

 

If that's possible it would be insane.

That's a top team for half a decade minimum. Potential dynasty

I remember the poison pill conversation with AR, but I think those contracts are only possible with 2nd rounders and undrafted?

But yeah I mentioned before I think there's a lot of engineering that can be done and I feel Rob has shown he knows how to take advantage of it.
He's been making trades and moves with a shortage of assets and coming out good. Getting rid of Russ and getting Smart and Ayton on buyouts were smart moves. I don't think Smart and Ayton fell in his lap, there were certainly talks with the agents to set it up. Not to talk about Luka where I do think he got lucky but managed to get it done and keep it quiet, there's value on that too.
I'm confident he will pull a couple tricks this summer


But, anyway, there's no way Detroit don't sign Duren. These teams don't get as many good players as other markets, he's super young and already had proven success with Cade, it's a no brainer.
Watson I still have some hope, Denver does need to spice it up and while I think Watson should stay, no one outside of Jokic is safe and they may go a different way. Small chance though
But yeah there's options to get creative

 

I saw the idea on the Denver reddit, someone was worried about San Antonio using their cap space to give Watson a poison pill contract and they’d have to match it at an average annual value of 25m. They were under the impression they wouldn’t match at 25m.

I just took it and ran with it. Since Duren is playing really terrible these playoffs I did wonder if Detroit would blink at 30m per. There is also Kessler we could offer the same to if Duren isn’t available.

I don’t know the details but if the poison pill option was available, we could follow the above steps and end up with what I think would be a favorite to win a championship the next two years.