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

using sacramento's choices to validate an opinion is...a choice in itself.

anyway, i think slick's argument that sac must have liked hunter is the best i can figure. i'm still not sure what cleveland's end game is here, as they only shaved 10 million off summer payroll, and that's before resigning ellis. and i think a lot of laker fans have some special sentiment for schroder, but he's simply not a very good player, imo. he's got a partial guarantee for 27-28, but he's on the books for next year at age 33 at mle money. there's a reason he plays for a new team every single year.

in the end, i would like to hear what our offer for ellis was, and i'm guessing it could be leaked soon. but this may be another in a long line of teams wishing they took our offer instead of seeing what happens when they don't. one possibility is we make a better trade and then sign ellis away from cleveland anyway.

 

i don't believe in pick hoarding, and i'd have spent a first to get ellis, but i'm not the FO. nor do we know we didn't make such an offer and that sacramento just a) wanted off schroder (like everyone else does) and/or b) really liked hunter.

 

I actually don’t disagree here. I think the kings outsmarted themselves and don’t blame the FO at all. They clearly had a chance at a pick for Ellis from a few teams but ended up using Ellis to get rid of Dennis who just signed. Just bad GM work from a bad franchise IMO.

 

Re Cavs: sounds like they'll try to move Garland or dump Zo if they can this week. That should clear up the backcourt a bit.

Re Kings:

Height? Did you not know how tall DS wasn't until you signed him? Also makes me think Monk is on the way out. And character is something you highlight when you're grasping at straws, not to say Hunter isn't a stand up locker room guy (heard zero bad things about that here in ATL), but that's not what you highlight in a acquisition announcement.



A contract they just HAPPILY handed out like skittles to a trick or treater. That's how you highlight your ineptitude.

 

I wish i could feel bad for the Queens fans... but i don't. What a sorry a** franchise

 

All this tells me is that all the supposed teams interested in Ellis either didn’t offer squat for him or didn’t want another players contract attached .Either way the kid isn’t worth a first founder. he just isn’t

 

Big move

 

So either the Kings valued Hunter more than a protected first, or no one ever offered a protected first for Ellis. I could see the former being true, I think they just like him.

I’d personally have traded our current tradeable first for Ellis. Don’t really care if it’s an overpay, I’d rather have his proven skillset now over the mystery box that is a player we might select with that pick in 2031 or a trade that includes it. The last two guys we picked in the first round (Dalton and JHS, each taken at a higher slot than what that pick is likely to be) have sucked. And when we get to the summer there’s a decent chance it ends up being the same “prices are higher in the summer, the FO is willing to wait until closer to the trade deadline” thing we’ve heard the last few summers. I’d rather have the bird in the hand and be able to see what the current nucleus of the team looks like when you add in another guy that can actually guard the ball.

 

yeah, that's my feeling. if we didn't offer that pick, i hope it's because we feel like it could be put to better use in another trade.

i would have taken on schroder (despite not being as big a fan as most), but we didn't have hunter, whom they apparently wanted.

i'm not sure i would have moved rui for schroder and ellis, and i'm not sure the kings would have gone for that, as i'm wondering if they view hunter being under contract as a good thing (he can't bolt in FA immediately as anyone in sac should do, yesterday).

 

Stephen A Smith when he actually cared lol

 

bulls waived jevon carter, who's better than gabe vincent.

 

We definitely may have a buyout guy we’re targeting.

 

These aren’t real names- they are Star Wars background characters at the Mos Isley Cantina.

 

feel like thybulle is going to be bought out if he's not traded (maybe after he's traded, too).

i'd still like to consolidate gabe/kleber into a 20 million expiring (not sure how many are out there) at the very least, if only to open up more spots for buyout guys (and to keep gabe away from jj).

 

if GSW not trading Jimmy it's all Giannis talks BS
Nick Friedell
By Nick Friedell
Feb. 1, 2026 5:00 am PST




SAN FRANCISCO —The man Mike Dunleavy Jr. is now considering trading for once tried to knock him out in the playoffs.

Back in 2015, Dunleavy, then a swingman for the Chicago Bulls, lined up for a 3-pointer late in the second quarter of Game 6 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against the Milwaukee Bucks. As he rose to take a shot from the left side of the floor, a 20-year-old 7-footer from the Bucks came charging at him well after the ball had left Dunleavy’s hands.

The force of the contact, in which the Bucks’ big man took a running head start from the center of the floor and trucked into Dunleavy’s midsection with his right forearm, sent the veteran sharpshooter into the Bradley Center’s courtside seats right next to Bucks co–owner Wes Edens and his daughter, Mallory.

The young Bucks big man, a second-year player from Greece, was upset Dunleavy had taken a shot at his teammate Michael Carter-Williams’ face earlier in the game. He had also been pushed to the ground by Dunleavy seconds before, and his actions earned him a flagrant 2 foul and an ejection from the game. His name?

Giannis Antetokounmpo.

A couple days after the incident, with his Bulls headed to a second-round showdown against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dunleavy — who was not suspended by the league for his shot to Carter-Williams — said he held no problems with Antetokounmpo and wished him well in the future.

“I got no issues with the guy,” Dunleavy said in May 2015. “Nice kid, young kid, going to be a really good player. Doesn’t change my feeling on wanting to get over to Mykonos.”

Almost 11 years later, the pair’s respective journeys have crossed again. Dunleavy, now the general manager of the Golden State Warriors, is trying to figure out a way to acquire Antetokounmpo, now in his 13th NBA season, and pair him with superstar Stephen Curry for one more push at an NBA championship before Curry retires.

Like he did throughout his 15-year NBA career, Dunleavy is taking it all in stride. Those who have watched him throughout various stages of his basketball life aren’t surprised by Dunleavy’s calm demeanor amid speculation about his team’s future.

A coach’s son, Dunleavy has lived and breathed basketball throughout his life. His father, Mike Sr., was an NBA player, then a coach, for years. Dunleavy played for legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski at Duke and was the No. 3 pick by the Warriors in the 2002 NBA Draft. Nothing in the game surprises him, and his dry humor helps him maintain perspective no matter how high or how low things get during a season.

In a game a year before Dunleavy brushed off getting knocked over by Antetokounmpo in the playoffs, he got tangled up with then-Sacramento Kings big man DeMarcus Cousins. After the game, Cousins told reporters he thought Dunleavy was a “clown.” The next day, Dunleavy had to chuckle when asked about the comments.

“He called me a clown?” Dunleavy said. “I mean, I’d like to respond but clowns can’t talk. So (I can) mime or (give him) some animal balloons or something. Oh man.”

It was a typical Dunleavy response.

No matter how much attention any specific episode or exchange got, he always carried himself the same way. He did that during his playing career, and he has exhibited the same habit as the man in charge of the Warriors’ day-to-day basketball operations. It’s why, even early in the season, when asked what the pressure was like in building a team that had championship aspirations, Duneavy deflected the question.

“I don’t know if it’s pressure,” Dunleavy told The Athletic in the preseason. “It’s fun just to have a chance. It’s certainly a lot better I think than building a team that’s not very good or rebuilding, so in that regard it’s a privilege. I think specifically with our team, you get to build a team around Steph Curry, not much better you can do than that, to have that foundational piece.

“And then going around it is — there are some challenges, but they’re fun. It’s good problem solving and all that, but to be able to build your team around Steph Curry, Steve Kerr’s your coach, and work for the Warriors (who) offer amazing resources, not a lot of downside to that.”

Dunleavy’s point was illustrated a year ago, almost to the day, when he acquired another man who played in that playoff game in Milwaukee back in 2015 — and who came over to check on him after Antetokounmpo ran him over that night — a teammate of his for three seasons with the Chicago Bulls: Jimmy Butler. After weeks of speculation about whether or not Butler would get traded, including a report that Butler told the Warriors he wouldn’t sign with them if they did trade for him, Dunleavy waited out the Miami Heat, eventually trading for him anyway and immediately signing him to a two-year extension.

As Dunleavy tries to figure out his next move with Antetokounmpo, his relationship with Butler also comes back into focus. The night after Butler got injured last month, Dunleavy answered questions from the media and noted that he didn’t “envision” moving Butler’s contract as part of any potential deal. He hoped that Butler would be able to return around the same time next season and give the Warriors a similar kind of boost as he did last February.

Before his injury, Butler repeatedly talked about how much he enjoyed the Warriors’ culture and playing alongside Curry and Draymond Green. For a player who has bounced around the league and been a part of a lot of drama along the way, Butler seemed unusually settled in his first year with the Warriors.

The question for Dunleavy and the front office becomes: Are they willing to stick with Butler throughout a lengthy rehab or use him as a contract match to help smoothly get an Antetokounmpo deal over the finish line?

Even in recent days, one league source said the Warriors have made it clear to Butler that they are going to stick by him as he begins a year-long rehab. But actions, as always, will speak louder than words — especially if the Bucks are motivated to move Antetokounmpo before the deadline and the Warriors are steadfast in not including Butler as part of a package.

 

Are we buying out Gabe? - Rob for executive of the year!

 

Ellis and Schroder to Cleveland, Hunter to Kings and Chicago gets Saric and one 2nd round pick. Does Ellis want to stay in Cleveland?

 

I would love that but JJ would never let that happen. Lol

 

the "if rob is unwilling to take money" is once again doing a bunch of lifting for pitchfork mob.

is this guy mad because we didn't do the deal for hunter? because that was a bad deal.

expiring contracts have only ever been worth guys who are currently viewed as overpaid on teams for whom the savings could make a real difference. like, we could have gotten trae young. did people want trae young?

i'm also 100% certain we'd take on salary for a clear upgrade. deandre hunter for rui most certainly was not it, and we don't know that sac was offering us ellis if we took schroder. if you believe them, they wanted hunter and said they turned down just expiring money.