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

I would bring Reaves off the bench when he comes back.

no more starting. He doesn’t need to be starting next to Luka and Lebron James.

Bring him off the bench and let him score. He needs to have his own offense and be focal point of offense.

too much pace and fast pace. That calf. He needs to be in a controlled setting.

To much were and tear.

Damn Ayton you really f***ed up on that one.

the pace is too f***ing fast. Too many injuries. Keegan Murray strained calf.

 

I think it’s time to shake up the starting unit. Reaves is out, so let’s go with Smart, Luka, LaRavia, Lebron, Ayton.

 

I think there’s a decent chance this is what JJ does. Might help Jake break out of this offensive slump.

 

Think so, too. Vando kind of mucks up the spacing whereas LaRavia is at least a threat if he's so inclined to be, IMO.

If Rui projects some of our best lineups as a 4, let him be the first one off the bench to sub in for LBJ and let him be useful there...

 

We could always lean into more "no defensive" guys; however, he might forget how to shoot when he gets here...

 

An unprotected 1st for Keon Ellis is insane.Not to mention every other team would hate them for raising the price for a rotational piece

 

In 2031-2032, Luka would be 32, Reaves would be 33, Ellis would be 31, Thiero would be 27 and so on. Theres a good chance we would stil lbe pretty good, so the pick is lihkely in the 20-30 range. Conversly, Charlotte is rebuilding, so that 2027 pick would likey be in the 30-35 range. High 2nd round picks are argeably more valuable than low 1st round picks. Additionally, the pick conveys sooner, so there is also value with that. Kings coudl brag they got us for an unprotectdd 1st, let them ahve that win. But we salvage a good 2nd from them, which we in turn use in the Wiggins deal. If we put protections on that pick, Sac might not want to play ball to begin with, but we also dont get the 2nd back if they do agree, which limits our avaialble asserts in an additional trade. I would also try to get the 2029 2nd from them if possible.

 

I’ve been trying to figure out a trade that gets LeBron to Cleveland, Garland to Brooklyn and MPJ here but Cleveland’s 2nd apron restrictions make things difficult

 

I mean, the issues are quite clear:

• Luka does best lifting up bad or below average teams into very good teams and doesn't mesh well with other ball-dominant stars. It's why Kyrie and Luka worked well. Kyrie was an elite off-ball scorer who could bail Luka out with tough shotmaking or shoot the ball in the same way Kyrie was able to do that with LeBron in Cleveland.
• Luka does not mesh well with LeBron at all. I'm sorry but it's a horrible pairing. LeBron and Luka have very similar, almost identical skillsets. It's redundant talent where they overlap. When Luka has the ball, it takes away from LeBron's own greatness and ability to replicate the same play so you've lost value there having LeBron. Now, imagine instead of LeBron, you have KD there. Because KD is an elite off-ball scorer and player, he'll mesh perfectly with Luka when Luka inevitably draws all the attention. Couple in the fact that LeBron and Luka aren't good defenders, when their offense isn't clicking and they aren't playing defense, it doesn't paint a good image. You can see when LeBron and Luka are out there, it's the same play EVERY time... LeBron sets a screen, and Luka ends up jacking up a bad three or passing it to LeBron to jack up a bad shot. Vice-versa, when LeBron has the ball, Luka just stands and watches arguing with fans. There's no play being created... just two players with incompatible skillsets.
• The reason Reaves works well with Luka or LeBron is because Reaves spent his first few years playing off-ball so he knows how to pick his spots. LeBron and Luka came straight into the league being ball dominant and expected to create every play. Asking them to change what they've been doing their entire basketball career is not going to happen. The problem is, Reaves can do everything Luka and LeBron can do so now you have three very redundant players with similar skillsets. It's just not a good match.
• This team plays no defense... Smart can play defense but makes equally boneheaded offensive plays. Vando plays good defense but has no offense. No one else plays defense except Jake who IMO, was playing incredibly well but ever since Bron came into the lineup again, he lost his confidence. You have guys like Rui... absolutely useless out there. No rebounding, no defense, and only knows how to knockdown a midrange jumper. Knecht is a lost cause... a grown man who looks afraid of the moment still upset that he was almost traded away.
• I'm having trouble seeing how this team can compete. The key takeaway here is LeBron+Luka don't work well together which is why I stated that trading LeBron to the Warriors for Butler+Podz would make sense. Butler will play off-ball and defense very well. Podz is a good young player. LeBron meshes well for the Warriors. It benefits both teams and doesn't hurt their long-term mobility with contracts. Lakers lucked out on some wins that easily could have gone the other way... Once I started noticing that games were getting close and the Lakers relied on finicky plays that relied on tough shot-making, I knew it was eventually going to end up hurting them and you're seeing that now... they're getting ran off the court by teams that they should be competitive with.

IMO, unless the Lakers make a trade for some defense and get some shooters up in there, there's a ceiling they have already reached as a team. Ayton has been the brightest spot for the Lakers but even then, he's mostly delegated to a role of scoring easy shots. He's not someone you can give the ball to and expect 25+ points. He scores when it's convenient which means that those shots aren't going to be there in the playoffs when teams force inconvenient plays. It will come to a point in time where this season ultimately comes down to "LeBron's on the roster so we can't really build on this team until he's gone".

And I hate to say it but if Rob doesn't pull off some decent moves in this offseason, he should be canned. This is many years in a row where the Lakers have not been able to improve the roster by signing 3/D guys. At some point, you just need to get realistic here about what's happening... The Lakers need 3/D guys! Not fringe one-sided talent players like D'Lo (can shoot the ball but can't do anything else), Vando (can defend but can't even score if the rim was 10 ft wide), and Rui (only good for the mid-range). Too many one-dimensional guys who offer nothing when their primary attribute is not clicking.

 

Porter not the ideal fit. Great shooter, excellent rebounder for his position. But he doesn't solve the defensive problem. He's more like a supped up Rui. We already know that doesn't work with our teams current personnel.

 

You don’t give up unprotected 1st for a rotational player period. Everything you just wrote is speculation.The reality is Ellis is playing 16 minutes a game for a horrible team and you suggest giving up an unprotected 1st for him?

 

where were the 3 and D guys to be had for our money/assets? we got one of the prominent ones (DFS), and let him go in FA in part due to a concern about an injury that has kept him out for the entire season to date.

we picked up goodwin, too, but let him walk to sign smart.

the guys we need haven't really been available, imo. even herb jones and keon ellis may not be moved, or may be moved for things we don't have to offer.

imo, we have lebron eating 50 million of the cap whilst, as you said, being a bad fit with luka. he expires this summer, and we can try to use the flexibility to get better fitting pieces. for now, i think we may be stuck unless we want to make a bad trade that kills us post-lebron.

 

well, and getting a second back. i'd prefer top-5 protection, and i think we could get that. if it was fully unprotected, i'd want more than one second back. those seconds become useful at the deadline (and we do a pretty good job using them ourselves, historically).

 

Tough to name them in hindsight but that's Rob's job. Every year, the Lakers get worse and worse in shooting and defense. It's like, at what point does that get fixed? Ever since losing KCP, the Lakers have yet to find a replacement. And dare I say it, Kuzma is better than Rui! He at least tries to play defense and can do other things out there. Rui simply does nothing out there and it's super frustrating to watch.

I defended Rob for being an above average GM and who has kept the Lakers competitive on paper and in the future without giving up draft assets but it's been many years that we have been talking about the lack of 3/D guys and every year, nothing happens.


It's true, maybe you have to wait for LeBron to go to do some real renovations out there but I would not be opposed to the new Lakers owner finding it within themselves to clean out the leadership and put in someone else to take charge.

 

i don't care if rob's fired, i just fail to see where we've been terribly managed--unless you think we should have cut ties with lebron/klutch earlier. but lebron's no trade clause would have always made that tough, in addition to the damage it would have done to the brand.

it's hard to manage the decline of an aging superstar. i'm guessing nobody wants rob's job until the lebron situation is settled. at which point, i'm guessing rob either takes the fall for the likely messy divorce or he gets a front office partner with some experience and connections in the league to help us quickly build around luka/reaves.

 

3 and D players are scarce. When the demand exceeds the supply, the price goes up. Every team is calling about this guy. You can't expect every player you trade for to be a ready made star player, sometimes you have to.buy low and project, in fact that's the correct method. BTW my trade ideas are worst case scenario ideas. Thats how I plan everything, whether it be saving money, outcomes, what have you. That is also the correct method. If you get Keon for less then that, then great.

 

I don’t think there’s a clear path for the Lakers to pull this off, but I would love it if there was a trade for Toumani Camara. Players like Keon Ellis aren’t worth a future 1st, but Camara is a ideal 3 and D bigger wing (6’8” 230lbs), made the all defense 2nd team last season, and shot 37.5% from 3. He’s only 25 years old as well.

He also is under contract for basically $20m/season until 2030 so he’s cost controlled and can be part of a Luka built core team for the long term.

A guy like that would be worth future firsts and even package any additional 2nd rounder

 

Lol yeah that would be nice. That would be Luka trade 2.0 "Defensive Version"

 

Well Porter is replacing LeBron in this, not Rui. We’d still have the exact same needs (turning Rui and the other salary slots into defensive players), just with Porter in the fold instead of LeBron.

We obviously need a defensive overhaul, but we need some scoring/shooting punch post-LeBron as well. You can’t just have Luka, Austin, and then Herb Jones, Keon Ellis and Matisse Thybulle. That team isn’t going to be able to score well enough against the best defenses in the league. The theory of a Luka/Austin team will always be Top 5 offense, Top 15 defense. Like the 2023 Nuggets. We’re farther away from that goal defensively, but we haven’t been good enough offensively lately either.