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

yeah, i wonder if that will be the referendum, as i foreshadowed above.

yeah, he's the best player in the league. if the other team has him, you're in trouble.

 

Guess the figure the injury bug has done enough.

 

I’m probably of the opinion that we sign Smart for 3 years - he’ll be 35 by the end of it. His style of play is just tough on the body, when he says he is thankful to be playing, I think his injuries were worse than people understand and he has managed to turn the corner. But one injury and he could fall apart. You don’t want another Nash situation.

If we’re operating under the cap, I’m giving Smart and Kennard room level money and I think they’d take it. Maybe with an opt out to get some more next season, but they’ll take it. Lebron you bring back at 20m and you try to open up a good 30m in cap space, because if you don’t open up the space - then what’s the point of operating under the cap at all? All you do is lose Rui’s cap slot for a similar or worse level player.

I think we really see what happens with the OKC series and operate from there.

 

I hope you are right about that. Room level money would obviously be great value for them. I think they get MLE level money though. I'm giving Smart 4 years to outbid other teams. It's his last big pay day.

 

Slick take a little bit of that money and lay big money on the Nuggets tomorrow. They might beat the Wolves by 50.

without Ant Man. No way NBA won’t have Jokic and Wemby.

I got Nuggets in 7.

 

Of course this is the Laker blowout 3-0 Rockets backs against the Wall. See the Lakers at Staples. See Austin at Staples. Look for KD to be out next game rest of series.

OKC game 1 Friday in OKC on prime.

 

It still amazes me how the NBA gave the Spurs this Dynasty.

it’s obvious. There’s fluke and then Flagrant.

The Fact that the Spurs got Fox without giving up Vassel is criminal. No draft pick.

This was manufactured.

Wemby
Harper Jr.
Fox
Vassell
Castle

no Castle back to Sacramento for Fox. What a f***ing Joke.

OKC
Shai
Holmgren
Williams

at least OKC scouted their talent. And traded away talent.

San Antonio is just a joke. So that’s the Rivalry for the next 15 years in the NBA.

Let’s go win this Championship.

 

Gonna need Thiero next series. I’m glad the guys are pissed. Time to whup some a** on Wednesday. Let’s go Austin.

this s*** is personal. Be relentless on them. Ayton go get his a**.

 

Adou Thiero’s athleticism pops off the screen. I liked his aggression too. He needs some work on team defensive concepts, he missed a few rotations defensively tonight. Once he works on that and his shot, he’ll be a monster.

 

I think there's a lot of recency bias in the last couple weeks about this team.

First, a lot of guys are playing roles they won't usually play with us moving forward. This is particularly true to Rui and Kennard. They are offensive minded players and with Luka/AR out they have much more ball and touches, they get into their shooting rhythm and therefore play much better and fluid. Rui in particularly also benefits defensively as he is slotted better without Luka there.

Then there's the matchup. I think this matchup is perfect for Rui as Houston has a bunch of forwards and no quick guards outside of Reed. That's the type of guys Rui is best suited to play against and it's showing.

There's definitely a case that Rui may be a playoff riser as the game slows down and he's more comfortable in that pace. Even more against a Houston team with an offense around KD and Sengun that play a lot of iso and slower paced.
I'm very curious to see him against OKC and see how he responds.

Then Smart and Ayton benefit too of their current roles to a lesser degree. Smart we already saw he's still impactful in whatever role so he's fine but Ayton we know he plays better the more touches he gets. We had that 80 to 90% winning record when he got +10 shots. I also think Sengun is a good matchup for him as he's not screen heavy nor is a very energetic guy that I think Ayton feels less comfortable with.

All this to say that I think taking offseason decisions based on a playoff series should be avoided, in my view, specifically when we are missing our 2 best players which changes everybody's role.

I still maintain we need to get more athletic and faster to offset our 2 stars profile on Luka and AR. Find more guys like Smart that do the little things, get physical, dive on the floor and do all the dirty work that frees up the stars to do what they do best

 

A lot comes down to how competitive we are with OKC. If we have Reaves and Luka back, do we go down in 5 or 6 hard fought games? Which would give me the confidence than a single major improvement probably gets us level.

Or do we get beaten pillar to post across 5 games and it’s clear we need 2-3 players and a mini rebuild.

Time will tell, but this team is performing admirably so far, hard not to be proud of them.

 

yeah, bugs me how everyone goes ballistic when we get a star for little return, but sac giftwraps fox to SA, and it's just shrewd management.

i think only injuries keep him from becoming anunoby. almost same exact size, probably even more athletic than anunoby at the same stage. he needs similar shooting improvement and health.

i agree that playing houston (who's a weird team anyway) down two stars makes it hard to know much. i'm also still skeptical on rui as a foundational piece (i like him, just think he's not a great fit with luka and lebron, and maybe not even with just luka).

good chance opinions change over the next couple weeks. hell, even last night's game was pretty sobering after a fun week.