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

I’m not worried about any team because we actually have a competent Center and I saw how we played without the Center and we did pretty good. Once the playoffs came we got exposed. But now we actually got the Center and have the team we’re going to have.

I’m not underestimating our team like talking heads are. It’s easy to go with Denver. Not being a homer.

but a full season of Luka Doncic makes this team special with the depth behind him. We’ve got a squad that gives us versatility. Youth on the wings. And when you have guys that can come in and just play a specific role that’s a special team.

 

Yeah I just saw that. I'm a Chargers fan. The optimistic take is that its just a sprain and moving Alt to LT is about as well as you can replace a star LT. Realistic take is that this is a huge blow. I was mentally prepared to miss the playoffs this year anyway.

 

I don't think any team wants our swaps. They're worthless, imo

 

I think Luka has the Shai year this season.

 

They're value isn't derived from their expected worth, they're alot like options in investing, as in, we have an injury riddled season and by some miracle that swap ends up being valuable. It's a throw in that could have an asymmetrical pay off for the team receiving them and that's where the value comes in. Admittedly, they aren't highly valuable, but they have some value as a sweetener in a trade.

 

swaps have about the expected value of a 2nd, imo. unless they're unprotected--then it's probably more like 3?

 

Like a half second, two protected swaps is a second?

Also we should appreciate that swaps between good teams holds value. Us trading a swap to Houston, OKC, NYK etc should hold value as it's effectively moving them up in the draft?

 

I would love to see him on the cover of 2K27. Maybe I can help.

 

They better not allow Golden State to get out of having Kaminga and give Golden State Josh Giddy. That would be a joke.

 

It's just rumors lol
It's just basically impossible to get this trade under new CBA



"There is a Base Year compensation rule. It is rarely applied, and a player must meet ALL of these criteria:

He is a free agent by Bird rules
His new salary exceeds the minimum.
He receives a raise of more than 20%.
Immediately after signing the contract, his team reaches or exceeds the salary cap.
If the player meets these criteria and is included in a trade under the CBA, his outgoing salary for matching purposes will be equal to his previous salary or 50% of the new salary, whichever is greater.

That is, signing Kuminga for $20 million for the CBA in Sacramento, the Warriors can only receive 50% of that amount in the outgoing contract ($10 million). Meanwhile, the new team receives the entire contract ($20 million). This means that you can't just acquire Monk with a salary of $19 million—you need to get rid of another $9-10 million before such a trade, which means you have to offload Moody or Hield to a third team.

...This explains the desire for an unprotected pick. Probably, if it were possible to swap Kuminga for Monk directly,
without losing Hield or Moody, the Warriors might agree to a protected pick."

In short, according to the base year compensation rule, both Warriors and Bulls, with conditional salaries of 25 million, will need to send players on contracts of ~12.5 million to the third team. At GSV – it's either Moody or Hield.

 

yeah, the double byc involves offloading two salaries to third/fourth teams, which is pretty wild.

it would be hugely insulting/somewhat funny for bkn to facilitate this whilst not signing their own RFA (and not bidding on either of these ones).

 

Opening night at home against the Warriors. Christmas day at home against the Rockets. Works for me!

 

That’s gonna be a great Christmas Day game.

 

They can do it, they renounce Kuminga, who signs for Chicago and then trade Moody for Giddey. This would get them below the first apron enough that they could sign Melton, Horford and another player.

I actually like Giddey the basketball player (let’s not make this a discussion about his personal life). He defends, rebounds, playmakes and as of last year he shot the ball extremely well. If his shot is real he can be a 18/8/8 player with good defence. He reminds me of a healthy Lonzo and I like that archetype, they make excellent 3rd or 4th options.

He would also play quite well next to Luka in a super tall back court.

 

But Kuminga is a RFA no? He's still under contract this year, right?

 

no; nobody has signed the qualifying offer yet, so they're all FAs. rescinding the QO makes him a UFA.

the league might look askance at svtzr's suggestion, though, as it is not legal to make a trade that allows for another move. though i'm not sure it violates the spirit in the way that other moves (that have mostly been suggested and not attempted due to the league indicating they'd stop it) do.

 

They went to far in this CBA in trying to curb player movement and power. It’s ended up clipping the wings of the majority of trades with the punitive measures of what you can and can’t take back and how you’re capped.

So I’d like to see Chicago and Golden State take advantage of the silly rules they made. Rules like the Base Year Compensation rule and matching salaries to such a specific point are just plain dumb.

EDIT: and then on the flip side you’re not meant to negotiate with free agents before the opening of free agency but everyone signs in the first minute. It’s just so many stupid rules.

 

i've never seen they byc rationale laid out--like, why in such special cases? i understand the concerns about jacking up a salary to trade match and circumvent the cap, but all the apron stuff and the three-year rule they put in a while back kind of handles that without the byc, which seems like a vestigial thing at this point.

 

Trades are one of the most exciting aspects of the NBA.
If I were the alienCommish, there would be ZERO restrictions on them.
None.
Dalton Knecht for the Joker? Dew it!
LeBron James for Alex Caruso? Yes please!
Jemison for AD? Sign me up!

 

I haven’t thought through the pros and cons of such a wide open trade market. There would be a lot of extreme winners and losers but I think no doubt there would be a lot more trade volume, the excitement would be crazy.