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

To rebuild with a young core. You’d have to trade Luka for the number 1 pick or get multiple 1st rounders. Get all draft picks.

The Lakers don’t do that. We couldn’t even keep the core of Deangelo Ingram Zubac and Randle.

closest we did to that was Shaq for Lamar Odom Caron Butler which turned into Bynum and Gasol and Odom. It was very painful to endure that. And I don’t know if Laker fans can do that.

Lukas timeline prevents that. What would be a similar reset would be trading Austin Reaves for Jalen Duran and putting Luka next to rugged defensive guys Smart Thiero LeBron Duren or Hachimura and Luka.

to get crafty.

Luka
Smart
Watson
LeBron
Duran

does that team compete with San Antonio and OKC. I think it’s tougher for them because Luka can score and now he’s surrounded by defense and length and you got Duran at 22 and Luka Watson and Duran can be effective

I think Lebron gives us that balanced scoring.

that would be a Jerry West Trade Jerry would probably try to get Holland from Detroit to.

But Luka doesn’t want Austin traded and we don’t want Austin traded so you just gotta enjoy the team and hope they get hot and go on a run. But little additions ain’t beating this San Antonio team or OKC.

 

This is some adversity for Shai though. Now we gonna see how great he is.

 

Thank you NBA for gifting San Antonio Dylan Harper. We see you working. We’re not stupid. Silver. We got Luka as a consolation.

Yall do this.

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OKC vs. Spurs

 

Cmon man you're comparing a DPOY candidate that was on All-Defensive 1st team 2 years ago with a guy that has been unplayable the last few years.

I like your posts and ideas but I think you're really off on this one.
I understand your concerns on both and we discussed it before, but there's certainly a middle ground between Herb not being as good as perceived vs Vando current ability. And I like Vando

 

It seems the Lakers should ask themselves what team construction could possibly be effective against this Spurs team, because they'll only get better the next couple of years. If you can't go inside and score in the paint (and you literally can't against Wemby), is it the only way to be a great 3-point and midrange team?

 

Herb was a favorite of mine. When he got healthy this year he took that New Orleans team from terrible to average defensively. So he is still an elite defender, but he has lost some of his POA speed. No doubt about that, but maybe that’s a health thing and it’ll come back? Offensively, he has been as bad as Vando, so I’m not saying Vando is Herb - I’m saying Herb’s offense bad.

I do think Missi is average though. Trey Murphy is good.

But I also don’t have a better plan than trying to peel of a player in a Giannis trade and trying to do a second trade for a draft pick. My first grand plan was stealing Watson, and I’m pretty sure that’s gone out the window. So I’ve kind of been resigned to getting someone like Thybulle or Spencer Jones.

 

well, okc is actually pretty good at both, right? they have one of the league's best midrange stars in SGA, and they have a bunch of guys who can knock down threes (maybe no real movement snipers or whatever, but plenty of guys that make threes).

honestly, i think you just build your own team and hope wemby's not 100% when you play them.

 

i think the pendulum has swung too far the other way on herb. i say this as someone who thought herb was pretty overrated at his apex, like 18 months ago in the dark ages. when people wanted to trade reaves for him, i was mad and perplexed.

all that said, here are his highlights from this past year (when he was supposedly vando-level bad on offense).

i ask you: does this look like vando? how many of these plays can vando execute in an empty gym?

https://www.nba.com/pelicans/videos/herb-jones-top-plays-2025-26-nba-season-highlights

i also think he'll get his catch and shoot three back to respectable enough to play alongside luka or reaves, who get you great looks in ways nobody in NO can.

is his contract going forward a little scary? yes. i just think he's a buy low candidate. like--if NO thinks he's just vando, can we get him for vando/knecht and no picks? i'm actually in.

i just like missi because he's currently cheap and can do hayes things. hayes is a better player right now, for sure. and missi may never be better than hayes. but we could use two hayes-es.

he is, but i actually think he's gotten a bit overrated. like, he's known as a defender, but the numbers have never loved him there. is he truly better than cam johnson? maybe a little, but you wouldn't guess that based on their trade market value.

i'm holding out slight hope we can use the klutch connection to work something to get watson, but yeah, seems unlikely. hell, if watson doesn't keep improving, we may be glad we didn't.

i didn't see smart/ayton/laravia coming last summer, so i'm guessing it will be another set of surprises this year.

 

Jokic is the real mvp. The only one that agrees that SGA is mvp is Kendrick Perkins

 

What I like about Wemby. Why he’s one of my favorite players. He represents everything that’s good about basketball.

1. interviews he gives you everything. No b*******. No filter. Honest and will tell you what’s up. It’s refreshing.

2. his respect for the game. Guys like Ant man should take note. What makes him the face of the league? He doesn’t cheat the game. He’s happy to play. He competes. Every game he’s competing. No dog. At the All Star round robin style. Play you win you stay on the court. From tip he’s sideline to sideline engaged. That’s a basketball player. He was visibly pissed when his team didn’t win. He’s telling guys where to go. He cared the game meant something to him. When you’re paying your $400 you’re getting your moneys worth. It sets the tone for the other players.

3. he’s a leader others follow him by the tone he sets. I mentioned how hard he played in the all star game. That’s what Kobe did. Kobe was like that. He has the Kobe mindset. He has the mamba mentality. That’s why Kobe was my favorite. He wanted to destroy you. He wanted to take you out. That’s Wemby giving it to Chet and Shai and letting them know about it. Posing. I’m the MVP. You gotta have that dog.

4. He’s from France but gets it. He’s outspoken on things he believes in. Like Kareem. He just has his causes and he’s gonna speak out on things. I like that. A smart player. Smart guy. Out of today’s player who’s not about the bling bling. I respect it. I admire it.

Go on young Fella show these guys how it’s done. Deal with it OKC he ain’t going nowhere.

 

yeah, it's hard to hate wemby other than he's just kind of a goliath figure. he talks trash, but so do pretty much all of these guys. it's just annoying because you can't do anything about it.

spurs got another bona fide generational franchise foundation out of pure luck. you're not going to hear his agent b****ing to the press about his supporting cast and stuff, either.

 

Lakers are at least 2-3 seasons behind both these teams. No strategy this summer or next gets them even close to these two.

 

Yeah, this may be the only way to beat him lol.

You're right about OKC, and that's the reason they can hang with SAS. I hope they get swept though, that would be the perfect (albeit highly unlikely) end to SGA's MVP post season.

 

spurs got another bona fide generational franchise foundation out of pure luck. you're not going to hear his agent b****ing to the press about his supporting cast and stuff, either.

Well ...what the hell is he supposed to complain about..talent? Castle and Harper were top 5 picks.

Vassel 11th and Bryant 14th, are 1st rd picks.

Johnson is the 6man of the year this season.

Fox was the 5th pick in his draft, and he's just entering his prime.

 

All the best players are from different countries

 

Okc can't isolate on the spurs. They have taller defenders that are versatile to handle cross matches.

 

Games like last night are why I can't completely dismiss a Giannis trade. Wemby is the best player in the world. When you factor in the impact he has on both sides of the court, he's better than Luka and Jokic. There's this narrative that's been going around that depth is the new blueprint for winning in the NBA, rather than just collecting star talent. It's only half true. As we saw last night, SA and OKC have both - elite top-end talent, as well as depth.

I don't know that we'll be able to beat either of these teams during Luka's prime by trying to build the same team as them. If we could keep LeBron and Austin, AND keep LeBron, AND LeBron doesn't drop off much or at all the next couple of years, AND we add multiple rotation guys we could catch them. That's a lot of if's. Maybe the answer is actually to zag and try to put two Top 5-7 guys on the same team. For all the talk about how that model doesn't work anymore, the last time two Top 5 guys played together (LeBron and AD) in 2020 we won the title. Might have won it the next year with just average health luck and no truncated offseason. LeBron was never at that level again after the Solomon Hill injury, or at least he couldn't sustain it. Now you can say that 2021 season is evidence of why you need better depth to withstand injury, to which I'd say yeah you're right. You need both, like SA and OKC have. But in the absence of the ability to have both, like they do, maybe you swing for the thing they don't have which is the two Top 5-7 guys. Two elite advantage creators with one in the game at all times.

There are obviously risks with Giannis - the injury concerns, the fit concerns, the resulting depth or lack thereof concerns. All of which are valid. But if the goal here is to actually win a championship with Luka, and acknowledging that he will be 28 the next time he's in a playoff game, not 22, maybe the better bit is to make the bake swing rather than trying to thread the needle of keeping Austin, hoping he has a little more improvement left in him, keeping LeBron, hoping he can maintain All Star-ish play for another couple of years, and then turning our assets into multiple rotation guys.

 

Yeah the process just worked fine for sas . Twice now! But they downplay it and use the drafting of Ginoboli and Parker to say it's more about culture

 

I think you’re spot on.You either copy what’s working or you do the opposite.there isn’t another Wemby so opposite might be the best approach

 

Yeah, it's not like he's robotic/uncoordinated/no hands/looks like he doesn't know how to shoot, like Vando could be some times. Exactly, Herb would be a buy low contract.