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

What do you think about Moussa Diabate? We could revisit Knecht and a first or two? Maybe we could get their #18 pick in a swap as they have a lot of young guys already and are seemingly trying to win now and need shooters? Seems they want Morez Johnson at #14. With #18 we could get Cenac and buy into early second round to pick up Brazile like you mentioned. So we could walk away with three 6'-11" long, atheltic, two way guys in one swoop lol.

 

I wouldn’t give Austin the Max. I don’t think he deserves it. I don’t think Dearen Fox is a max player.

Max guys Stephen Curry

Wemby

Max guys Kevin Durant

Lebron James

Devin Booker

Shai.

Jokic

Jaylon Brown

Tatum

Jalen Johnson.

you have to be able to always show out and always be dependable guys plan for you. You’re always on the scouting report.

Any game you effect. Austin isn’t that.

his tier are the next guys.

The Stephen Castles

The Jalen Williams those types.

 

Nobody is giving Austin a max

 

That's a brilliant shout, I'm down. He's an expiring at 2.7M. We can give the MLE (16M) next year. Does the Hornets pay him 20-25+? Because he can tell them either you pay me that or I'm out for free next season. They can bulk or they can get a pick from us and we get bird rights and save the MLE for another guy.
Getting a guy like Diabate that can give solid 25 to 30 minutes at 2.7M is worth a pick.

That would allow us to sign Thybulle instead of Williams and have:

Luka | Smart | Bronny
AR | Thybulle | (project)
Dosunmu | Herb | Jake
Bron | Portis | Thiero
Diabate | Hayes | Isaac

That's a deep team. We need rebounding, it's the new luxury and we cover that.
We have length.
We may lack some scoring and become too heavy on the stars. But the attention they attract should free up good opportunities for all guys from Diabate to Thybulle to average 10 a game. That's 6 guys. Shooting is attached to this.
We can play small too. It's good to be flexible.
I like it and it doesn't seem far fetched

 

It's an incredible sequence - that Hondo shot is kind of amazing. Made it look so easy - two dribble floating bank. Surprised no one tried to make that into a go to shot - almost impossible to stop

 

I hope no one thinks I wish this kid any ill. I think he will stay.

but the FO needs to sell that we need guys like him to make some sacrifices in order to catch up with OKC/Spurs

Brunson and Bridges took pay cuts in order to make the Knicks competitive, and that's about to pay off.

if he's not willing to do this and take a team-friendly deal, I still sign him, but will ship him out at the first good offer.

 

Honestly, I'm not super impressed, but he could be a nice buy-low prospect in a similar category to Missi. The best thing about that guy is he is an excellent rebounder, with about 12 per 36. The data from bball reference shows he had 98 dunks in 1899 minutes, which is pretty solid, but not great. Could be increased with the Luka effect. I saw a few lobs in the highlights. 1.4 blocks per 36 minutes is better than Ayton, but not as good as Hayes. He's pretty good. Depending on the mix of players we are going to use.

I'm starting to open my mind to maybe copying the Knicks/Spurs/OKC builds instead of the 24 Mavs build to essentially run a 5 out starting 5. In order to do so, we would have to get creative to get at least one lob threat that could shoot. Murphey, Herb, Watson, Eason, Vassaar, Suigo, Brazile, Morez Johnson come to mind.

 

Let’s not copy anything. Let’s build such an amazing squad that everybody else tries to copy us instead.

it doesn’t feel like Reeves should get the Supermax when he hasn’t been able to sustain Max level performance for more than half a season, but we’ve probably seen crazier things in this league.

 

He's not getting the Supermax It's going to be what he is "elligible" for if the Lakers want to keep him or IMO some kind of a discount because he wants to be here. After being underpaid every season he has played for us. The guy has been making winning and clutch plays and shots, and being a jack of all trades "connector" type player balls out on the floor for 5 seasons.

 

I understand what you are saying, I don't like to copy jack s*** in real life, but the reality is it's a copy-cat league. There must be a legitimate reason why they copy each other. But in terms of the Lakers, I don't care about that. A lot of us have been saying for a long time now that we need 3 and D players around Luka anyway, which just happens to be what the Knicks/Sours/Thunder have an embarrassment of riches of. Look at 3 of the top 4 teams have a similar style, with Cleveland being the outlier. It's still essentially the same concept. And you could infer that Redick would enjoy that type of system. He's very hesitant to play non-shooters.