2026-27 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

Optimistic perspective my guy. I'm not mad at you though, the sky is the limit during the summer.

 

I would add to this but you already said it
Nice.

 

An interesting topic

https://www.netsdaily.com/nets-news/111479/how-the-nbas-new-owners-reset-the-league-in-72-hours

 

Atlanta said the same thing, so why are they letting him walk?

 

Don’t think we should use bad teams’ decisions as a measuring stick.

 

At least

 

Allegedly Atlanta has interest in bringing Kuminga back, they just opted out on his contract to free up cap space for making roster decisions apparently.

 

That’s the second team that let him go.

His metrics are off the charts, 6’8 with an NBA body, 7’ wingspan, fast with a 38” vertical.

Can play fantastic defense on man, has had stat lines like: 34/10/5 with 3 stocks - he has had 20 games like this over his career scoring 20-35 with 7-12 rebounds 4-8 assists and 2+ stocks.

So why do fanbases get pissed off at him? And why do coaches give up on him and teams ultimately let him go?

It’s because his effort level doesn’t have a baseline, it’s high for a stretch when he is motivated and then low for 65% of the time. His motor like Ayton’s rises and falls in correlation to his offensive touches. His IQ isn’t high and he doesn’t understand help rotations or offensive reads 5 years into his career.

All anybody wants him to be is Wiggins. But anytime he gets the ball he goes into black hole Kobe mode. Just defend and play in the flow of the offense and you’ll make 200-300 million in your career dude.

If we sign him, I’ll be cheering him on and hope this is the spot where he changes. But I’d prefer to get Spencer Jones, he’ll guard 1-5 like they owe him the rent, hit his 3’s and FT’s and won’t do dumb crap that we’ll get pissed about.

One in the best case breaks out to be a star. The other breaks out to be the Smart/Caruso of wing defenders. Most likely scenario is Kuminga gets passed around to a few more teams and Jones is a 10-20 min defensive bench piece.

 

GSW openly bragged how they could compete in the present while simultaneously retooling for the future and in the process completely mismanaged 3 lottery players.

I don’t think Kuminga is ever an all star, but I think we have one franchise that failed several young players and another with multiple young players at the same position, and hasn’t ruled out bringing him back.

 

GSW also developed Podz, Moody, Poole, Looney, GP2, Post and a bunch of less successful guys like TSA, Lee etc

Wiseman is a high profile failure. But they gave him time to develop, that was just an issue in picking the wrong guy not opportunity.

Moody has become a nice rotation piece for them and they’ve given him lots of time.

Kuminga though has been given the most amount of chances to develop. His shot hasn’t come around, his defense hasn’t either, his play within a team environment hasn’t improved. He has a 1:1 assist to turnover rate.

I don’t know, he is clearly the most talented free agent left. But he is the Ayton of wings - let’s not lie to ourselves. The whole hope is we can be the one to fix him.

 

I’m a little more bullish on the possibility of fixing Kuminga over Ayton due to age. GSW kind of built up Kuminga and Moody as if they were the future so it feels like they’ve been around a while, but still only 23. Ayton was 27 when he arrived so you knew what you were getting.

But yes, the hope is that he turns his physical potential into productivity here. If he does, then I think a contract around $13-17M is a great value. If he continues to be exactly who he’s been, I think he’s still young enough that contract could be moved.

 

I imagine if he signs here, it’ll be in a sign and trade for Hardy or something, that gets him 13ish million with a PO in year 2. It won’t be a long term contract. So there is no risk in trying to get off him.

If he plays well, he’ll leave like Monk did because he wants money. So you’ll have a stop gap for a year. If he doesn’t play well, you’ll deal with the ups and downs of the Ayton of wings for 2 years.

I mean why not, he is the most talented option I guess. But I’d still try to find a defensive stud who can shoot a bit for the team. We don’t need anymore iso scoring in my opinion.

 

Kuminga is not the greatest fit, but he does have some attributes of previous Luka players, like Jones Jr and Washington. Prior to going to Dallas, Jones Jr was a low volume three-point shooter, and only was hitting about 34% of his three's. Once paired with Luka, DJJ's volume and accuracy both went up, and has stayed up- yet maybe plateud without Luka. That's around where Kuminga was at last season. Luka could help unlcok stuff with Kuminga, and it culd improve his career. Kuminga also provides the "lob threat at other positions" that DJJ and PJ did. This is possibly Carr and Kuminga. DJJ and PJ also improved their defense, with DJJ turning into a point of attack defender.

So all in all, it's worth the risk.

Lakers likely open up two or three additional roster spots, with Vando, Bronny, and possibly at least one more player going out in trade. The extra center just needs to be that, and extra center. Richards would be ideal, but whoever it is, it needs to be a minimum. With the other roster spot, it would be nice to see us using it on Thybulle. Sometimes you just need to stick a pkayer on someone, Thybulle is ideal for this. Although Manon might be a poor-mans Thybulle in training.

 

It’s not a question of talent or potential for me. It’s a question of desire to play a role. Kuminga wants to be Luka not DJJ or PJ.

Think about it, here’s a guy who should be averaging 18/7/3 with very good defense and earning 25m a season. But he would rather chuck and be a 20+ scorer because he wants a max contract.

I’d be excited to add him but I think he’ll be the same guy he has been the last 5 years.

 

I honestly prefer Rui, but it seems Lakers are after Kuminga. So might as well just look for the positives in it.

 

This is what I was suggesting yesterday. Definitely should do it.

 

Oh I’d be fine with Spencer Jones. Just feels like Kuminga is the one thats going to happen and we’ve been fairly good at reclamation projects.

 

if we're signing Kuminga for a respectable amount I hope that this time the franchise's best interests are taken into account, and it's a tradeable contract with a team option.

there's no point doing a one year with a player option, and then he bolts if he has a good season, and if he doesn't we're stuck with him.

 

Right now I have our team rotation like this:

Luka / Sexton / Bronny
Reaves / Carr / Knecht / Hardy
Grimes / Jake / Adou
x / Mamu / Vando
Walker / Mamu / x

We have 13 guys on the team. If nothing changes, Jake is probably starting at the PF with Mamu as a backup to both PF/C. I imagine we are looking for a starting PF and a third string center to balance the team out.

We have 192.7m in salary, 3 seconds and a swap. Potentially, we may move Bronny for another second to pop's new team. We're 16.2m below the first apron were we are hardcapped. So that means any trades we make, we can take back the additional 7.5m in salary.

We have Knecht (4.2m), Hardy (6m) and Vando (12.4m) that are all salary ballast. So we can trade for anything from a rookie scale player up to (packaging Hardy & Vando) 25.9m and if we did all 3 that could be 30.1m (or up to 32m if it's Jake instead of Knecht).

I'm kind of holding on to hope that we can do a trade, heck maybe 2?