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

Ayton can’t play like a b****. Ayton can’t play like a p****. Ayton has to play like a Baller. It’s very important. He has to be a force inside. This has to be his most important series. Ayton can make alot of money or be out the league. Ayton has to play like a beast.

 

From a tactical standpoint I would be looking to add another legit ballhandler, somebody that can bring the ball up and get us into our sets against pressure. If I was the opponent, Id be looking to press the f*** out of Smart and Kennard full court.

 

you're right, they're a bad example because they had THREE max guys, all in their prime, and all took LESS than the max. we would have two supermaxes, one exiting his prime, and the aprons to deal with.

the point was that just pairing two stars who are an awkward fit isn't a good idea. it's been a pretty bad idea a lot lately, even with better-fitting stars.

not sure what an average reason is, but the good reason being that "having two superstars = great results" doesn't compute for me and ignores some pretty serious trends that i and others have already pointed out, and i'm not rehashing.

as slick said, if it happened, i'd find a way to get on board. but i hope it doesn't, and i hope the mere attempt at it doesn't make things even worse than had we sensibly operated outside of this possibility.

 

regarding the injury thing, we should play the game and make up fake injuries to load manage guys like other teams do.

JJ did a Thibs impersonation and ran our players to the ground in this last stretch of the season, and we're going to pay for that with almost no chance in the playoffs

 

or we keep our stars' minutes to 32-33 instead of 35-36, and we play a deeper rotation with more youth earlier in the season. when the playoffs come, luka and reaves can play 36+ minutes and marcus smart can play 30, etc.

the real injuries we had made it harder to take random rest days; just unfortunate facts of life. like, you can't healthy scratch luka when he missed 12 games for real injuries already, right?

 

Houston is top 5 in defensive rating and the best offensive rebounding team in the league ( something both Luka and AR are good at).

Playoffs are different , Lakers are going to get destroyed regardless of the opponent without Luka and AR