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

If Lakers dont make any significant noise would you say it was Worth it.

not everyone viewed it as a bad fit. Yes many did base on his lack of shooting and how it worked it with others. Thing is Lakers passed on Hield shooting for play making. Right now Laker went for a traditional big top defense not the modern stretch 5 that won rings the past few seasons. For it to reach the Westbrook levels they would have to miss the playoffs or struggle badly. I dont see that happening unless injuries. So we a talking worst case. high cost, miss playoffs, no draft capital. best case win or a legit contender.

 

i think mpj simply isn't a winning basketball player. he's overpaid pretty dramatically for what he brings (tertiary offense, no defense). i'd be shocked if denver tried to bring him back.

watson's whole valuation is about potential. jacquez basically hasn't improved since he's been in the league. he is what he is: solid unspectacular forward, probably best suited to bench role but could be a 5th starter.

the idea is that watson could blossom into a bona fide 2-way third guy. it's a stretch, but it's what people are probably thinking. anyway, his upside is unquestionably higher than jacquez's, and milwaukee is in full upside mode.

 

form what i am seeing only the Nets can do this trade, Then you have to ask why would they if they dont want him?


Unlike Karl Malone i think Lebron still wanted more money.

no i dont think Watson gets anything significantly better.

no the point is the players signing are signing shorter and in many cases less. you holding out does nothing. Teams cap situations are what they are.

My point he got a team he liked with a decent offer. Jazz was not going to over spend and decided to go out and get another so him holding out and had La moved on was not going to end in his favor and would have been in Watson and Kuminga situation.

Well he is banking on himself. Lots can happen in 4 years

The cost. Games have to be played to determine if it was worth it or not.

 

Kessler was a gamble;it might pay off..it might not. Ayton at 8M per was great value IMO...We could have signed Robinson at 15M, and kept the draft picks, and used them to work out S&T for both Watson and Kuminga theoretically.

That's a better squad IMO. The traditional vs mobile stretch type of big, is an interesting discussion. It's been a minute since the traditional type big as the main 5, has produced a chip. I guess we are looking to buck that trend. Gobert is still probably the prototype traditional big..No rings, or Finals appearance.

 

If Kesler and Markannen was a good duo why would they trade for Jackson. Dont you see they were only signing Walker to a market value contract to trade him. They wasted no time jumping at Lakers offer. Jazz had no intentions to keep Walker and he knew this.

 

The other thing about the new ownership, if they were trying to buy an expansion team, they probably already had a management team in mind. What does this mean for Jeanie, Rob, Kurt and JJ? Walter seemed content with keeping things basically the same.

 

thing is some people put a ton of stock in Walker

Based on the team construction Luka is the PF.

 

Technically he was the PF in Dallas too. Ironically..Utah had Gobert and Kessler, and ended up trading them both. Ainge had been floating a Kessler for two FRP trade, ever since his sophomore season, we are the only team that bit on it. He is also one of the few GM'S it seems, that didn't have a problem making trades with Rob. Can't take anything back now tho;let's hope it turns out great.

 

i dont expect much to change unless the new owners wants to be hands on. start up teams comes with a learning curve. With the Lakers its in motion already so changes will be gradual just like it was with Walter.

 

https://soaringdownsouth.com/jonathan-kuminga-may-be-running-out-of-options-after-latest-setback

If these guys are smart they get something done sooner than later. Are these guys letting their agent use them to send messages to owners. Not going to work with just two players. At this point i am not sure what they thinking. Dude Lakers Cavs cant pay you anymore than Hawks Denver is willing to take back.

 

Strangest schedule ever
2 Clippers games and 2 GSW games in October and 2 games vs Portland in like couple weeks and look at February
Feb. 10 @ Clippers — ESPN
Feb. 12 @ Denver — ESPN
Feb. 16 vs Chicago
Feb. 18 @ Houston — Prime
Feb. 19 @ Denver — ESPN ‍
WTF

 

When I decide to buy an NBA team I know who my GM will be.

Edit: LB needs to buy the Lakers, we would win every year.

 

The schedule looks pretty good out of the gate. It gets real around the middle of December.

https://www.espn.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/lal/seasontype/2

 

Do tell on the GM

LB owning the Lakers. Would we ever get everyone to agree at the same time?

Might get weird

 

nothing's changed. the teams after watson and kuminga need third and fourth teams to facilitate. it's been that way the whole time, imo. now, i suppose atlanta could do a straight up swap for laravia and a 2nd or two (i think that's fair), but that locks kuminga into basically a three year mle deal.

atlanta could just sign kuminga to a one-year deal big enough to keep them under the apron, too. this makes him a good trade piece for multiple reasons (either as salary ballast or to a team that wants him and his bird rights). depends on whether the hawks want to pay luxury tax. historically, they haven't, and they're below it right now (i think).

anyway, i don't think much has changed. i will be curious to find out what our standing offer has been in any case. is it the vet min? 10 per? mle? or 17-18? depending on our ability to line up trades, all are possible. i'm guessing if it was the 17, it would have been done already, so we probably couldn't find two takers for contracts or were focusing on a 1-1 deal, limiting his starting salary to mle or less.

 

i don't understand the lack of interest in pj, particularly if you're moving vando in the deal. yeah, pj had a down year last year, but he's not that old; he's playoff-proven, and he fits our needs, imo. we committed 4 years to grimes, kessler, and mamu--why not pj? i'll be watching that one for a while.

we don't know what ainge was asking, other than it was more than we had (so at least 2 firsts). several reports were that he wasn't for sale.

some word was that they asked for reaves and multiple picks, and they also reportedly asked for knecht and "multiple firsts" back when knecht's stock was high (it was!).

anyway, they offered him 30m per. if they did it to trade him, they believed they'd be able to trade him. so if we're dumb, they are also dumb.

 

The goal seems to be having the full MLE next summer for another key rotation addition. It seems they don't see PJ better than Watson, Dort, Cam Johnson and so on. I'd agree.

PJ is nice but he is overrated imo. He only shot once over 35% in the last 4 years. He had the 2nd worst 4th quarter 3pt % last year.
He's a long guy who can do some defensive plays, but is not efficient (45% or below last 4 seasons), not even from the stripe (70% or lower).
I rather gamble on the MLE

 

counterpoints:

-good chance those guys don't see FA next year. the modern nba has almost no free agency, and i'm guessing the next cba will specifically attempt to address that. but for now, almost nobody really good makes it to UFA.
-washington looked better with luka:



the defense is consistently solid, but you can just see the luka effect on the offense here, imo, as his two worst seasons were pre- and post-luka.

and again, if you can just move vando for it? huge win to me.

prepared to be wrong, but if some other contender takes the risk on washington and reaps benefits, i'll be annoyed. that's IF all this is true about us not being interested due to the contract size/length. but i mean, he makes 19 next year and is a starting caliber player who would plug right into our forward spot...

 

We would have to exclude some Debbie Downers!!