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

Myles Turner sounds like the center you’re looking for.Not a rebounder but certainly protects the rim and hits 3’s.Probably not that hard to get either.Still just 30 years old

 

i'm mostly on your team re: giannis, but i'll play devil's advocate and say that someone (i think svtzr) convinced me that you could trade for giannis without sacrificing all the depth.

it would involve losing reaves (and reaves agreeing to it), but reaves/vando and the picks gets it done, and you could basically operate over the cap, using various rights and exceptions to keep basically everyone else:

giannis 58
luka 50
lebron 25 (bird, could go higher or lower)
rui 16 (bird, could go higher or lower)
kennard 10 (non-bird raise)
ayton 8 (assuming opt-in)
hayes 7
laravia 6
smart 6
knecht 4
bronny 2
thiero 1

you'd have basically enough room under the apron to use the full mle in this situation. or if smart wants a raise, maybe you can split it between him thybulle or him and ellis (more likely?).

ayton/hayes
giannis/rui
lebron/thiero/knecht
luka/kennard
ellis/smart

you're certain to get at least one of the best vet mins as either a ring chasing old guy or a malik monk style career reboot, too.

i prefer keeping reaves and adding two impact players each at half giannis's salary slot, of course.

 

Well this is exactly what I'm talking about. OKC and the Spurs are great because they have elite top-end talent AND depth. Right now the depth/athleticism down the roster is the big difference between us and them, but the second LeBron leaves/materially declines there's a gulf in top-end talent as well. The Spurs have a 22 year old Wemby who is already better than Luka and two guards in their early 20s who will each probably be better than Austin sooner rather than later. The FO could do all of those things you said over multiple transaction cycles, but at the end of the day if its just Luka, Austin and a deep roster of athletic, two-way role players that's not going to be good enough. Keeping up with, or exceeding, their top-end talent is not less important than improving down the roster.

We're not in a great position here. Both OKC and the Spurs are better than us, younger than us, and have more assets to improve/maintain over the next few years. The way I see it, there are two paths. We go the patient route, as you described, and try to progressively build over multiple transaction cycles. Part of the route, which I don't think is discussed enough, is we probably will need to bring in another All-Caliber-ish guy to replace LeBron, or if we can't do that upgrade on Reaves like you said. Because Luka/Austin/role players is not good enough. Or, we go for the big swing now and hope that a Luka/Giannis pairing is so devastating that it allows us to get away with some lesser players down the roster. To be clear, I don't think either path is a great bet. I just don't think the Giannis path is any worse of a bet than the other path. Unfortunately, I think it's more likely than not that we don't win a championship in Luka's prime. Yes injuries/things happen so maybe one year someone on the Spurs or OKC is injured, but that stuff could just as easily happen to us. We already had this year's playoff run washed out by injury.

 

It sounds like we're mostly in agreement on all of this.

The thing for me is that I don't think the Giannis path is viable or even comparable to the patient pathway at all. To me, that would just be a braindead attempt to do what used to work for the Lakers in years past that would inevitably fail due to our abject failure up til now to even bother trying to build an elite roster on the margins for the other half of the winning equation and when the so called "superteam" of Luka, Giannis, LeBron and maybe Austin goes down in flames a la the Hindenburg Disaster, the Lakers will have no assets or pathways forward available to course correct and allow Luka to remain competitive for the remainder of his prime.

The only winning path for the Lakers right now is patience.

Frankly, the only superstar trade I'd personally be interested in seeing the Lakers pursuing over the next couple of years is a trade for Ant. Begrudgingly, he'd be the exact sort of Big Name Player that the Lakers would immediately benefit from in a big upgrade over Austin for the secondary playmaker position next to Luka that would drastically improve the roster's athleticism and likely defensive playmaking (I suspect Ant's decline in recent years on that front has a lot to do with him having to be the primary playmaker on the Wolves).

 

Not a terrible option and certainly a rather realistic one IMO, but right now I think the best case scenario for the Lakers is helping facilitate a Giannis trade to the Miami Heat and getting Kel'el Ware in the deal. Young enough to continue growing as a player, fits everything we need for both a Big playing next to Luka AND the floor spacing mandate that the Spurs have basically just issued to the rest of the League, and above all else is still on his rookie contract.

 

I do think Ant is worth keeping an eye on. We're probably at least a full season away from there being any "Ant is unhappy here" stuff, but yeah I mean a re-signed Austin + picks for Ant does make sense. I agree that his defensive "decline" is mostly him just not trying in the regular season because he has a big ballhandling burden now that Conley has aged out. I feel like Atlanta is going to be the second stop for him though. He's from Atlanta, went to Georgia, gets to play in the easier conference and would still be the #1 guy, face of the franchise. Atlanta was flirting with going all-in on Giannis, but doing it with Ant and pairing him with Jalen Johnson makes way more sense.

 

before we got luka, i thought ant was going to be the next big star to be a laker, tbh.

 

It's already pre-starting



Is there a KCP way of taking care of Ayton and Jax that lays the groundwork the way KCP did for the Bron arrival?

Hawks might have an advantage but have been inept since the 90s, outside of their Young and Millsap window.

He likes acting and being a showman. That's LA

 

Certainly would welcome Ware. If I’m Milwaukee though I would want a young talent like him in this trade

 

best path to edwards is re-signing reaves and having him play well while retaining all of our picks (and hitting on this year's, tbh).

 

Oh boy here we go kicking the can for a year or 2 to keep the power dry for Ant lol
If we trade our 3 picks we only get to 2 again in 2030

He would be great and possibly our best way to match/beat the top West teams. But yeah Atlanta makes more sense for him. I'd surely go East if I could and if he's from there even better. Also a good team, good young core and great fit for him.
I think LA would appeal him a lot but Luka would take too much shining from him to his liking, I guess. It would always be Luka's team

 

oh yeah, to be clear, i'm actually all for spending the picks this summer if we can get starting quality players with them. burn 'em all. let's go.

 

x2, our superstar is now in his prime, we need to maximize the window, not wait for another pipedream

 

ok
give it back to real MVP of your choice

 

There’s no way Ant Man is choosing Atlanta over L.A. wouldn’t happen never would happen. You can’t sale shoes in Atlanta.

He’s Hollywood. Lukas here. If the NBA wants Ant man in L.A. he’s coming to L.A.

I said he would come here. And there’s no Lukas team Ants team. Luka wasn’t drafted here he was traded here.

They would play together. If he ever left Minnesota it would be to play with Luka. See his reaction when we got Luka. He’s always liked Luka and admired Luka. He’s always liked L.A.


We could talk all we want about this player and that player. But Lukas getting a superstar this off season. Book it.