2025-26 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

this stuff aside, it might be worth perusing the duffy client list to inform future speculation.

of note to me is devin carter, whom the kings already offered for kuminga, so he's not on their untouchable list...

vucevic, who may be bought out, is also on this list.

looking ahead a couple years, so is jaden mcdaniels, who's an ideal fit with luka and reaves.

 

Yeah. I said earlier I thought we were probably trying to see what happens with Vucevic. I can see us trying to bring in some other guys he represents as well.

 

I don't see his agent wanting 2 of his clients stealing minutes from each other, so I think we are out on Vuc

Smart though would be amazing
And McDaniels will be my main target of his list for the next few years, although I don't see him leaving Minny or Ant, but you never know

 

fun fact: same agency for DFS and mark williams...

 

I will continue to be patient and wait until the Season starts before I judge Rob and his moves, or lack of

 

Yep

Make that deal every day of the week

And we all know about the Lakers tax when trading

It's a fact, not made up

 

i think it's kind of a fake player option. people are mad we let a fan favorite (justifiably so) go for a pretty low price. and i get that. but this isn't caruso. in this case, it was either/or, and i prefer what we got, talent-, age-, and need-wise.

it's going to suck watching DFS possibly play a robert horry type role for a very good houston team the next two years, for sure. but i think i would have made the same decision.

 

But it's all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, you can't please everyone
So you got to please yourself

 

Yeah. I mentioned Smart as a target earlier. I could just see us wanting to build up some real options at the center position and it’s been rumored that we wanted to bring in multiple guys.

 

That’s eye opening to see, we assumed he didn’t want to resign DFS because of the 4 year deal. Finding out he resigned for 2 years guaranteed is a kick to the stomach.

His new starting salary is 12m. We just paid him 15m this past season. That’s a shame as he took the discount I was hoping he would. From memory, if DFS took a 3m discount (which he did) and we cut Shake (which we can), all we needed was to find an additional 4m in savings to open up the full MLE.

That could have been done by moving Knecht for some second rounders and we could have had Lawrence of Arabia and Ayton as well as DFS.

Not that we should get too hung up on it, but the ball was dropped on renegotiations for what is a very useful player at below market rates.

 

this is assuming DFS would have taken that deal (my argument is that we may have discussed a similar deal and it was taken as an insult*). also, moving knecht for 2nds before this week would have started a riot.

finally, i think cutting shake only saves like under a million because of the vet min cap hold that would have been triggered at that point (we didn't have a full roster).

i'm just not sure it was all possible.

*you can call this botching negotiations, but i don't really see a way around it. can't imagine having that conversation go well, similar to the lebron opt-in stuff. just no way to make everyone happy when you're worried about future finances with old players.

 

If we added 2 players with the MLE instead of 1 we would have been at 14 so it would of worked.

Luka/Gabe/Bronny
Reaves/Goodwin
Rui/DFS/LaRavia
Lebron/Vando/Adou
Ayton/Kleber/Hayes

I would have offered DFS 40m @ 3 years guaranteed. Year 1: 12, Year 2: 13, Year 3: 14. I figure that would have been accepted but instead they want cap space. Also I would have offered Lebron a nice round number 100m @ 2 years which is 50m per for the next two seasons. If he accepted a 4m discount for the extra year, you don’t even need to waive Knecht.

We basically lock ourselves in for two years with this squad and we can improve via trading our expirings this season, at the deadline, next offseason and next years deadline. We’d have 1 first round pick this year and an additional 2 next year.

Like I said, we’ve done fine and can still improve. But no one is above criticism and I don’t feel like the moves I listed above are that far away from reality, DFS gets 3 guaranteed years rather than 2 and Lebron gets two shots at the cherry with the idea that we’re going all in.

 

So he's now most overpaid player in NBA .
Cool

 

Lebron 's 50M albatross, impossible to make moves with on the books contract, is going to look like a bargain soon.

I still think DFS was a bit overrated around here, and we came out ahead with Rob's moves so far.

Duffy 's clients list, is more impressive than Klutch's moving forward too. This new partnership has some possibilities. Bring on Vucevic and Smart!!!!

 

No cap the Lakers have to sign Bradley Beal. I think it caps off a great off season


LaRavia Ayton and Beal.

Beal actually is better in the starting lineup next to Luka more like a Kyrie where he doesn’t need the ball. Kyrie is the only guy who I thought did the best job playing next to Luka and they went to the finals.

Beal can play off ball and catch and shoot and shoot the corner three.

let Reaves run the second unit where he can handle the ball and be the primary scorer where he’s not playing with LeBron or Luka.

or start Reaves and bring Beal off the bench. It solves a lot but we can definitely use Beals scoring.

 

Dielo Aou looks like a phenomenal player. Can’t wait to see him in summer league now that he’s signed. He can be our OG. I wanna see him and Bronnie playing together. Let’s see him lock down some of these guys.