2024-25 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

i know we hope this, but there's a decent chance that's an unprotected lotto pick, man. and it's right now.

i don't think daniels is great, but all that matters is atlanta liking a cost-controlled young asset over whomever we'd offer that wasn't reaves. they didn't want dlo (another bad fit for their roster), rui (pretty meh asset right now, probably overpaid for his production), vando or gabe (missed entire season with injuries), or max (no, he is NOT seen to be as good as daniels by non-laker fans).

i'm pretty sure we offered both picks. they wanted reaves, too. maybe reaves AND max, like everyone else has been demanding from us.

anyway, our best revenge against the laker tax is to succeed anyway, which a) will screw both the pels and hawks and b) will put us in a stronger position to make other trades if we wish to do so.

i'm much more annoyed we didn't get a center of any sort than i am that we didn't give up reaves for murray.

 

Cool, maybe we see some movement now that Markenan has been resolved.

 

Always thought the idea that the Jazz needed to trade Markkanen to properly tank was overstated. They finished 31-51 last year after being in contention for the play-in and then shipping out Fontecchio, Olynyk and Agbaji. They only teams below them in the West were the Spurs, Grizzlies and Blazers. The Grizzlies will almost certainly vault above them with their guys back, and I think there's a good chance the Spurs do as well. I could even see the Blazers beating them out if one of their young guys takes a leap. But at worst, they're likely the 2nd worst team in the conference even with Markkanen. The Pistons, Wizards, and Nets are tanking their hearts out in the East, but the Jazz will be playing a much tougher schedule in the West. All that to say, even with Markkanen I think they have a good shot of being 4th or 5th in the lottery odds. I never thought it made sense to trade a 27 year old All-Star for an incrementally better shot at a Top 3 pick. If you get a little lucky in the lottery and come away with Flagg, well now you really have a foundation with two blue-chip guys.

 

yeah, that and more picks that they really can't use that effectively unless they want to re-trade them. and they can't retrade them for a star unless they've got someone in place that people want to play with.

they'll move sexton and collins, imo, but i don't think they were really serious about moving markkanen at all.

as you said, they'll be plenty bad anyway. this way they have a semistar who's happy there and might be a draw when they try to unload picks for a star in trade.

 

seems like both he and the jazz kinda planned it that way? the irony is that he's a great fit with a guy like donovan mitchell. i see why utah would do this, and i actually wondered why they were even considering trading a borderline allstar in his prime who clearly wanted to be there. you can't just clear the books when you're the utah jazz. luka isn't signing there. so now they have one piece in the fold and still have lots of picks and tradeable contracts to use when it's time to start winning again, which should be either next year or the year after, based on the pick they currently owe okc.

still wondering if they might be a trade partner for us before the season starts.

sexton and kessler for dlo and either wood or jhs makes some sense for both sides, imo. if it's jhs, maybe we don't have to add a protected 1st to get it done? maybe they'll take reddish on top of it, just to clear a spot and some cap breathing room?

i've seen some suggest NO will trade them ingram for kessler, but i'm not sure if utah wants to deal with ingram's contract situation.

 

Ingram is a conundrum: he's a really good offensive player whose a tough matchup but since he doesn't play defense and can't play off ball it becomes a problem. He's probably not good enough to be your #1 offensive option if you want to win a title so teams are going to balk out at giving him a max.

Overall I really don't like this contract structure for the NBA - second and third tier stars are being paid at the level or more then first tier stars. The middle of the pack players are getting squeezed as well as guyd like Dinwiddie on the tail end of careers.

To be max eligible they need to tighten to top 5 NBA voting, NBA 1st team as true max eligible. NBA 2nd team another tier, 3rd team another tier. Something better then this where guys like Markannen whose a fine player but is simply not worth giving away such a huge percentage of your cap

 

Just one bad move after another that summer.

Masterclass in ruining a team with championship hopes.

 

Just think, if Rob still likes THT we can get him for the minimum if we find a way to open up a roster spot.

THT is a Klutch client so there’s that whole thing right?

 

lol, i still think THT can be an nba player, but he's two years past when he should have developed a standing three and become a stalwart perimeter defender. think he's got to go the full pj tucker route and rehab his game overseas.

 

When he got his contract, he died. Plunkduh just did the same to Max Christie and you will see history repeating itself.

 

i am definitely concerned that max is another guy we might have internally overrated. we'll find out soon.

but this is the danger with drafting really young guys. we've had most of our success picking experienced players later in the draft. not sure why we started moving away from it.

 

Per case/position in draft basis? Got another experienced one this year at 17.

 

The other day I was thinking that maybe we are have some long term plan we, fans, are not aware.
Signing these youngsters so we have them in cheap salaries when the cap space starts going up and leaving us with a lot of space to have a big 3 or something like that.
The lack of moves this year and the insistence on player development from JJ and Rob may be indications of that

 

i mean that we went with christie and jhs after years of success drafting more experienced guys later in the draft/udfa (kuz, nance, hart, clarkson, reaves). i guess we did hit on zubac and wagner as less experienced guys, though.

i'm sure that's part of it. 8 million for max will be basically the bae in year three of the contract, right? the issue is you better be right, because had we had the tpmle to spend this year, we might have trent or tyus jones (not guaranteed).

anyway, i'm hoping we're right and that max can fulfill his potential--which is definitely there!

 

I think Lakers ownership, Pelinka, and Klutch all have a bit of accountability to botching the whole Caruso scenario.

Caruso has stated he went back to the Lakers front office and said he would prefer to stay in LA if they could match the Bull’s offer (they were like $3 million/season apart), but the Lakers declined and thought signing THT and replacing Caruso with Kendrick Nunn would work.

There’s fault on Lakers ownership for being cheap, Rob for not realizing Caruso was a superstar in his role even though all the analytics were very clear he was (the Lakers +/- was at its best when LeBron/AD/Caruso were on the court together). Klutch is equally liable for this because both THT and Kendrick Nunn were Klutch clients and I’m sure that influence had a lot to do with how things played out.

That one mistake in many ways set the team back 2-3 years if you think about it. If we just kept Caruso, we could have used the mid level exception on other roster needs like perhaps solid 3&D wing defenders or capable centers that allowed AD to play the 4.

Instead we blew 2 occassions of being able to use the mid level exception on Nunn (who produced nothing the entire time) and Gabe Vincent, to make up for basically not having the Bald Eagle.


Malpractice.