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

From Vash - he's been excommunicated to LG as we all know. I've been excommunicated there, too. A few times. . I blame @LTLakerFan Either way, check out the content.

.

Again, thought it was interesting - like the Zaire signing, especially considering the value of the deal. Helps fill a wing need and a depth signing.

 

Viewing these trades from the opposite side of things, PJ kind of makes sense. PJ doesn't align with Flagg's timeline, and they have a crowded frontcourt. So if they don't view him as one of their core pieces, Vando + fillers allows them more flexibility to resign their core pieces in a couple of years. They also receive some draft capital. This is still Year 2 of their rebuild so taking on negative assets is no biggie.

The incentive for the Hawks to trade Kuminga seem much weaker. They're pretty competitive already. No wonder talks have stalled. I don't blame them for being reluctant to take on Vando for 2 years.

 

Like what the Lakers are doing.Building real depth to the team.obviously they need a couple starters to complete the team but when/if they do they will be a problem

 

I agree. Vando on their books for 27-28 instead of Washington gives them an additional 10 million or so in cap-room and he would also be an expiring contract at that point.

 

That's a lot of effort for a 5 & 5 big who's playing 20 games max. I know he's a great teammate and locker room guy, but damn. Maybe focus on your roster and your asinine asks for your talent on your bottom feeding organization (that we won't stop poaching from for some reason).

 

I think we have a better chance of trading Vando for PJ than Kuminga. Atlanta has already been rumored to not want Vando. Yeah, it would probably have to be something like Hardy and Jake for Kuminga.

 

They're basically paying him to be an influencer.

Nice.

 

Locker room influence? Be easier to understand if they’d been any good at all during his tenure.

 

It occurred to me that when Shams mentioned us still strongly pursuing Kuminga in his tweet about the Williams signing, I'm pretty sure that was the first time Shams himself said a word about us pursuing Kuminga. I find that interesting.

I doubt a reporter like Shams is late to the party and just finally throwing out old intel.

More likely is the other reporters were early to the party when negotiations were still in tentative stages, and now maybe things are actually getting closer.

 

In a vacuum, I think not wanting to use our remaining seconds and our last swap to get off of Vando is defensible. If you wait a year, Vando will be an expiring (pretty sure he's picking up his PO for $13 million) and we'll have the nontaxpayer MLE. You could probably add two more solid pieces to this current roster. But we're not operating in a vacuum, we're operating in a reality where we have 27 year old Luka Doncic and already took a "gap" year of sorts. Not sure there's much appetite for another one.

 

Yeah, last couple of years I’d have advocated for stopping now, but not this year. And again, these “stuck” teams keep making moves anyway.

 

I do think there’s a balance though.

For example, with Zaire I think LaRavia is now more expendable. So if Vando has negative value, maybe now you pivot to trading Hardy and LaRavia as your salary matching to get Kuminga. The hope being you don’t have to give as much draft assets now.

If you pull that off and go into the season as is, I truly think we have a solid enough rotation where you can afford to let Vando rot at the end of the bench.

I wouldn’t look at it as a gap year. We still have our core pieces to compete this year, we’re just biding our time for our most negative value asset to become more of a neutral/positive asset.

So maybe we don’t win a championship this year, but we build a core vision and develop chemistry. Then next summer you have the full MLE, BAE, and now Vando as a neutral expiring contract to really take some swings to properly fill in the remaining gaps you identify in this roster.

 

Yeah, i mentioned earlier in that scenario if Kuminga gets a contract starting at 17 million, we could stretch Vando and gain access to the full non-taxpayer MLE of about 16 million.

 

Here's how I'm looking at the roster at the moment:

Reaves / Sexton / Manon (because I think Bronny will be gone)
Grimes / Hardy / Carr
Luka / Williams / Knecht
LaRavia / Thiero / Vando
Kessler / Mamu / Looney

If you think of Luka as more of a forward, rather than putting him on the depth chart as a guard (which I think makes no sense and drives me crazy), I'm not sure Hardy is really that expendable. We only have three sure-fire rotation guards right now - Reaves, Grimes and Sexton. I feel like we actually kind of need Hardy in the (maybe likely) event Carr and/or Manon aren't ready to be every-night contributors. I think of the 2023-2024 season, when everyone wanted Max to be the everyday backup 2 behind Austin. Turned out he wasn't ready for that yet, and then when Gabe got hurt we desperately needed another guard and picked up Dinwiddie.

I feel similarly about Jake, whom I think would be the starting 4 if the season started today. He's also needed in the (maybe likely) event Thiero can't be an every-night contributor either.

Trading LaRavia and Hardy, as opposed to Vando and Knecht, for Kuminga makes us dangerously reliant on these young guys IMO. I'd rather bite the bullet and spend what it takes to turn Vando and Knecht into Kuminga. In that scenario, if Kuminga works out we're all of a sudden pretty deep. Maybe Carr/Thiero/Manon overtake Hardy and LaRavia in the rotation organically, rather than needing them to be in the rotation because those guys are gone.

 

Kind of cool

 

MEH ….. bunch of ******* p*****s.

OX probably