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

I will never take it for granted. Best Basketball game I’ve ever been to. Game 7 Lakers Portland Trail Blazers. Row 9 Lower Level. Seeing that Kobe to Shaq alley oop was a moment I will always cherish. It build you can see it building the jump shot by Kobe. Next play brings defense out to Kobe frees up Shaq for the lob.

place was like a stadium concert. The comeback that game had it all. After the alley oop. Whole arena erupts to DMX yall gonna make me lose my Mind. Party. Song just came out. In the arena it Thumped.

That’s playoff Basketball. And that started the Dynasty.

 

That’s the loudest I’ve ever heard staples center.

 

Can’t be paying a Mortage for a NBA playoff game.

 

When does this kid eligible

https://youtube.com/shorts/EJawLfzuQ-E?si=0vm91otg9bsm8VLc

 

He is big and dominant for high school

But he needs to work on his shot for when he starts playing guys his size

 

needs to work on his demeanor, too. i'd be very wary of drafting a guy who trash talks grandmas in hs games playing against people my size.

 

He has no jump shot no touch. What’s so impressive about him. Is he Demarcus Cousins??? You know how many guys been called Baby Shaq??? Demarcus Cousins is 10 times better than him.

He’s gotta work on his conditioning. In the league there are a lot of guys who will do work on him.

 

I wanna say something about this Series.

it just shows you Mitch Johnson is an idiot coach.

I’m looking at you Abeer. The demeanor of Wemby after that game 7 win. What’s your take? It was reckless. The jubilation the antics. He needed his coach to calm him down a little bit. I get it. But some guys don’t even want to touch that trophy. I’m watching cringing going Jobs Not Finished.

and Johnson basked in Champagne. Wheres Harrison. As a coach he should’ve bought it down a little. We gotta get ready for a great Knicks team. I saw none of that.

These kids acted like they arrived already. As if the OKC series was the championship. When the Knicks win the championship. Players will be talking about how Wembys antics fuled them.

his vibe this championship Wemby has been subdued. He looks as if he’s checked out mentality. Complete opposite last series. Telling the players what they need to do after game 5 in OKC. He looked engaged. He looks shook.

they don’t have enough shooters. And it’s showing. Vassell is on a milk Carton. Johnson amateur and it’s showing.

Phil Jackson would’ve told Wemby you aren’t doing s***. You haven’t done s***. You’re playing like a big pussycat. You’re a big pussycat.

I haven’t heard Mitch Johnson say my guys got punked today. They’re punking us. They are more physical than us.

Michel Malone would be the perfect coach for this team.

 

Anybody hear of friction in the locker room between Dearen Fox and Dylan Harper?

 

The Spurs look like country club kids and the Knicks look like street kids from the City.

Wembys gotta get some toughness to him street. They need a dog next to him.

if it were me I’d send a message and start mason Pumblee next to him next game.

Towns is just going at him. He’s got confidence. And the Knicks shooting is lights out.

You gotta have Shooting. I’m telling yall if we were In a series like that with Rui he’d be doing that. OG is nice. You have Rui. You gotta bring him back so he can be that guy for you.

we have a Jalen Luka Doncic. Mike Bridges was worth those 4 first round draft picks Hugh.

but if you’re Brooklyn that’s gotta sting right??? The guy you got as the centerpiece of the Kevin Durant trade is going to win a championship with the New York Knicks.

Cuban can talk all his s*** but he didn’t make Jalen Brunson a priority and he should’ve.

 

Hearing analyst who say they are Lakers fans and are bleeding Orange and Black is disgusting. I’m still pissed about 1973. You idiots when they won that championship they beat us. But that’s that. I hate the Knicks. I’m not a New York fan. I can’t stand them. They are obnoxious. We’ll never hear the end of this. And now we’re hearing how great their fan base is. Better than us??? Better than us????

Lakers run 200-2003 this town was insane a party. I’ll tell yall after the Lakers 2000 Championship. That was incredible. This town was a big party. This was the NBA Mecca yeah I said it. It amazes me how they talk that crap.

 

honestly, i think he was just letting his guys be themselves. it's how they got to the finals. i don't think wemby thought it was over, but psychologically, it's hard to manage that situation, imo. i give johnson a pass. i just think they ran into a bad matchup in the finals (i picked the knicks ahead of the series) after a pretty good one in the conference finals.

the spurs arrived a year earlier than i thought, and maybe a year earlier than they thought, tbh. the roster wasn't quite complete, and there's obvious inexperience (much of which is being taken care of as we speak).

i think he's fine, and they're fine, and as long as wemby's healthy, all title runs will have to go through them for a while.

really want to use this as a cautionary tale for those who don't want to "overpay" reaves.

when brunson asked to sign an extension, he was coming off a playoff series in which his defense was exploited (got ty lue hunted off the floor). dallas balked, and then the knicks started immediately tampering, to the point where it was an open secret that dallas had no chance at re-signing him. the relationship soured because the organization reacted (in hindsight, obviously overreacted) to a bad playoff performance.

 

He's got the Shaq bigger than everyone bully part down great. Those rim hangs should be T'd up but refs are probably afraid of him.

 

True that.

 

If you thing Mitch Johnson is an “idiot” because his team is losing to a better one, you are just plain wrong.
He got an extremely young group of players past OKC, the favorite to win it all. They also were the number one seed.
Castle, Wemby, Bryant, and Harper are all under the age of 22!
Vassel is 25 and Champagnie is only 24.
Johnson and Fox are their “old guys” at 26 and 28, respectively.

I thought it would be a couple seasons from now for them to make the Finals, due to their inexperience, but proved that they are AHEAD of schedule.

 

Hayes, Sabonis,

In La i think its time to stop looking as anything less than a title is a failure. Spurs did very Well all season and in the playoffs and took down the champs. If they dont win it all nothing to hang heads about. Its a grind and see where they can be better. Only one team can win and that is the reality. your right.

 

I'm intrigued by Henri Veesaar in the draft. Might be the best combination of lob-catcher, rim-protector, rebounder, and shooter that might be available to us - even if you are talking free agency or trade. Right now, the main priority is to keep Luka happy. He's going to want lob-catching bigs. Instead of going for more of a cerebral lob-catcher like, Onyenso, Cenic, or Brazile, we get Veesaar- who is arguably just as good as them at catching lobs. I mean, he is really good at dunking- check out the highlights. So we appease Luka, while also sort of appeasing Redick - since Veesaar is also an excellent shooter and pretty NBA ready/plug and play. You could play Veesaar in lineups with non-shooters, like Vando or Thiero, without going small and/or loosing a lob-threat in the game - if that makes sense.

 

I mean in that 2nd unit, you would have 2 front court lob-threats in Veesaar and Thiero. Also in the long term something like: Luka/Reaves/x/Thiero/Veesaar would be very athletic, defensive, and Luka friendly. So much flexibility there, you could go big, small, or medium.

 

I hear you on Veesaar, but I'm having a hard time evaluating him. His highlight tapes look great the 3pt shooting is real and the lobs remind me a lot of Jay Huff. But for an athletic 7 footer, he doesn't block a lot of shots (3.8% blk rate this year, 5% over his career) by comparison Huff was at a 12% blk rate his final year. Also that UNC team underperformed. I know they were missing Wilson for the second half of the season but they ended up firing Hubert Davis.

I think with the hire from the Pelicans office, we'll probably try and swing a trade for Murphy, Jones or Missi without having to give up too much. I suppose you could play Veesaar with Hayes, that'd be pretty entertaining.

 

The block rate is what made me hesitant about him, but when you consider his block rate was around 6% in his other two years in college, it might suggest part of it was he was playing the 4, alongside Wilson at the 5, who had a 4.4% block rate himself. Those 2 other years, he averaged 2 blocks per 36, while this past year he averaged around 1.4. He also measured with a very good standing reach at the combine, at 9'3". He might end up being a decent rim-protector. For comparison, KAT was only 1.8% this year, but was very effective for the Knicks. I think Veesaar and Thiero's skills would complement each other long term.