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

Crowd energy is huge as well. We came from 17 down in the middle of the third to beat a very good rival for homecoming just because the crowd would not accept losing. Scored as time ran out to win by one. Fan power is real and why getting home court advantage is critical.

 

interesting...it only clears about 6m, though, right? and unless it's announced as part of something larger, i'm not sure this means kuminga goes there?

told you charlotte was likely to be involved, though.

i wonder if clearing that room under the first apron will allow them to move strus somewhere and take bag bigger salary for watson or kuminga. that's probably the play. curious to see how the rest shakes out.

 

Cleveland is pursuing Watson not Kuminga

 

11 teams in 8 years is impressive

 

and turned down 80 million.

And turned down 80 million.

 

I think it’s Watson first then Kuminga. I’m not certain losing strus, schroder, Ellis, and wade is worth it, though.

 

Well it depends. Depth is nice but you can also have too much depth. Guys want to play and your rotation only stretches about 11, 12 guys. So you got guys sitting there hoping someone gets injured. So quality of your first 11 could be better.

 

… sorry Dennis I’ll pile on.

 

Ellis didn't really play much for them and didn't get action in the playoffs, so not sure that's a loss since he didn't contribute. Watson is better than the combination of Wade and Strus. Schroeder's loss hurts, And they can probably give him a starting salary of roughly 20m while bringing back Harden at 30m per.

Harden / Porter Jr / Thomas
Mitchell / Merrill / Proctor
Watson / Tyson / Mann
Mobley / Tomlin / Hezonja
Allen / Bryant

The starting unit is one of the best in the league, but that bench is pretty terrible. But the Knicks just showed you can get hot in the playoffs if healthy and make out like bandits.

 

No Kuminga? Hmmm. And yes, I know "Rob isn't done", "we have 16 players on the roster," blah, blah, blah.

Go get me another 3/4, Rob.

 

Rob is on the job!

 

i think he's a theoretical loss. as in you had his bird rights and could have signed him for 9m per instead of having tre mann for 8 right now?

this is also theoretical. practically, wade has been a better player than watson, as has strus, both by themselves. you're counting on further growth (and consistency) from watson. and for it to happen right now.

lol, i'll disagree again. schroder moves teams every 9 months and nobody misses him.

right now, they've only got 23 million apron space. if they trade strus for watson at say, 20 per to start, they've only got 19 left for harden.

i highly doubt harden opted out of 40 million to take a 3/60.

this is further complicated by the fact that denver can't take strus back, so you need a third team with both space and apron room. as i mentioned, there's maybe only two of those left, and charlotte was one.

even if this does come to pass, i'm just not sure it's a better team than last year's or the year before's. their problem has actually been their big guns not stepping up in the playoffs, tbh.

 

btw, reporting currently is that a cavs deal for kuminga or watson isn't imminent because of the schroder deal. they also paid 4 million to push the deal through.



this is what i mean by it being difficult to just get off 15 million right now. they only got off 6 and had to pay 4 to do it.

 

Contract always seems fair until you want to trade that player. We have to Pray Walker work out. As a traditional big, a 15% trade kicker it has work. If we ever decide to trade him i dont think its going to be easy if it comes to that. This is also a prove it year for Austin. When Dennis signed his contract is was a fair deal now its called hefty.