2026-27 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

If im the Raptors, i's suing the crap out of everyone. Balmer, alien boy, kawhi and his uncle. f*** that bs

 

Thanks man, I keep forgetting. I access on the phone in Tapatalk and right now with either X or Twitter it doesn't show on screen, so I forget it.
Great service though, really helps the users. Will try to remember. Thanks!

 

yeah, so if that's right, i was right about if knecht was the only outgoing salary, the max incoming salary is 2xknecht + 250K, or about 8.75m. the 8.8 is the salary cutoff, not the amount you can add.

now, the 9m on top of anything over 8.8 going out is higher than the 7.5 i've been figuring.

so if we have two guys outgoing that make 10 total (e.g., knecht/jake), we can take back 19. this is the route i thought we'd use to get kuminga, sending a second each with jake and knecht, and the last second to atl. obviously, we either didn't offer that or couldn't find two takers for our salaries, hence the 10m number--though it would really be more like 9m.

 

My main takeaway is that these guys are mostly clueless. First of all, complaining about how often a guy is appearing in your algorithm while dedicating 5 minutes of your podcast to said guy shows a lack of self awareness. This all feeds the machine and Marks also noted that besides RFA, business is done. What else is there to talk about besides where Lebron goes and Kuminga?

And acting as if the window to S&T for Kuminga has virtually closed after the Ayton trade is just lazy. I didn't take it as anti-Lakers bias, but it came across as whining without any objective creativity into how teams facilitate trades. A 2nd to Atlanta, and a 2nd to another team to take on an expiring contract really isn't far fetched or that difficult to accomplish. Heck, I'm not entirely convinced that Jake couldn't be traded to someone without a pack attached to be a team's 10-11th guy on an expiring contract.

TL;DR = ESPN's talent pool continues to circle the drain.

 

Yeah this is why I don't put much stock in all the podcaster speculation being reported like "Kuminga hasn't signed yet because he wants X (high number) AAV".

And specially don't agree with the common Laker fan sentiment that takes things like that as gospel and runs with it like "See Kuminga doesn't care about winning, he's greedy and selfish, we shouldn't want him"

Sign-and-trade negotiations are complicated. This situation is more complicated due to the Lebron hold up, and the roster space/cap situation around the league.

My sense is that there is a reasonable number somewhere in the $10-20M range that both Kuminga and the Lakers would be amenable to... BUT that would require a sign-and-trade that is tricky to negotiate. Atlanta is going to be even less willing to take on salary given their roster space situation. Third/fourth teams involved would want assets from us to help facilitate. We may like Kuminga a lot but understandably be hesitant to deplete all our remaining draft assets.

So my guess is that right now we are hanging tight at a smaller offer that only involves dumping one salary and asset. Kuminga is lukewarm about this AAV so understandably wants to hold out to see what offers might emerge after Lebron's decision. We are currently holding tight at this offer because we think it's still the best Kuminga can get, and/or we are hopeful that when the dust settles we can get Kuminga at his preferred higher AAV since other teams may eventually back down from their high asking prices to help facilitate that sign-and-trade.

 

the interest is because the lakers have been tied to him. windhorst knows this. the other reason is because kuminga is the best UFA left on the market, by a longshot (well, lebron, but the best in the "not going to be retired in 11 months" category). of course fans that want their teams to contend are interested in adding the best remaining UFA at a position of need, and one of them happens to be the biggest fan base in the league.

windhorst clearly doesn't understand the cap, but marks should (isn't he a former FO guy?!) and is at least acting as though he doesn't? like marks is acting as though a three-team trade has never occurred.

i've complained people are being lazy on the cavs front (unless harden takes a "league investigates" kind of salary cut, they have to move some decent-sized salaries with not many places to move them), i don't think windhorst even understands the possible routes there.

the only thing they mentioned that has actually been lost on me was the 3-year requirement on S&Ts. totally forgot about it, and it does alter my thinking. almost to the point where i think it's highly unlikely kuminga goes anywhere, lol.

 

I could be wrong, but for some reason I thought 2 + 1 year TO/PO qualified. If it does, then I've been assuming any deal would match that. If it has to be 3 guaranteed years, then that would also explain why Kuminga is pushing for the higher AAV.

 

sorry for the second post, but given that i forgot about the 3 year thing, the only sensible path to kuminga is even more complicated.

basically, jake to washington and knecht to sac, each with a 2nd attached. kuminga to us on a 3/60, atl gets the last second or maybe a 2nd swap or something?

atlanta gets a trade exception and stays under the tax. washington gets a potential rotation guy who's expiring anyway plus a goodie. sac gets a prospect/reclamation project who's also expiring plus a goodie. both teams currently have a roster spot. if the numbers i see are right, both teams have room under the luxury tax to allow this (much less the apron).

 

no, i think the only guaranteed year has to be the first one, actually. problem with just not guaranteeing the second year is that if you waive him at a low salary, some team could just take him into their exception or space next summer, and kuminga's already been held hostage once, so i'm guessing he hates that idea.

so i'm back to not understanding the 2/20 offer we supposedly had out there. couldn't happen in a S&T, would need to be 3/30.

and yeah, i'm back to needing to get up near that 20 number.

 

The contract has to be at least three years, and technically a player or team option could only be set for the fourth year.

But only the first year needs to be guaranteed.

So you could do a three year deal where the third year is non-guaranteed to the point where you could essentially consider it a two year deal. I wonder if the “2 years/$20 million” rumors were actually this type of framework (or maybe a prior framework before we went over the cap where we would have cleared that cap and just signed him outright)

Problem is I’m pretty sure the non-guarantees is going to be unfriendly to the player and almost function as a team option. Not sure if it could be structured to give the player an out, I do believe Hartenstein has a non-guarantee on his new deal that has been reported as a “mutual out” but I don’t recall ever seeing that before

 

Yeah to all.
It's actually funny that only after your post that I finally understood the application of the 9mil. It slipped on me even after reading that tweet and others before lol

Just pointing that we can do Hardy and get over 10M (12M apparently). So probably that's the play. Or maybe the number we get to depends on the player we can send away

This is a very good summary and very reasonable. Abeer and someone else yesterday wrote something similar and I do agree. I ranted yesterday a bit about him but your take is more sensible.

I've read you can circumvent it through guaranteed/non-guaranteed money. Not entirely know how are the mechanics and what would make Kuminga accept it because it would need something that protects him

Also read the 3y can't have a TO/PO.

 

Yeah we are all posting at the same time saying about the same ahah great stuff!

I also heard that stuff about someone regarding a mutual out, probably was Hartenstein yeah. Same feelings, don't remember seeing it before and it's weird how it works.
Good we have a NASA guy

 

the mutual option thing is usually a PO and a NG in the same (final) year.

the S&T must be three years, no options until 4th, i believe. but it only has to be guaranteed for one. but again, the non-guarantee is an issue because it can't be used to exploit the bird rights. why? say kuminga has a great year and is outperforming his contract, so we waive him to try to re-sign him at a higher rate with his bird rights. this is possible EXCEPT anyone with the space could just pick him up off waivers, locking him into the low rate but for their team. no bueno por nadie.

 

How do we waive him and maintain bird rights? Sounds weird.
And if we do waive him, it would be with an immediate agreement to re-sign so I think that wouldn't happen.

But yeah there's some challenges, let's see how they work it out.

Bron just launched the Mind the Game episode, followed by an interview with some guy popping up right after in my algo. Type of stuff you do to increase your media appearance. He probably makes the decision until the weekend

 

yeah, it's weird, but i'm pretty sure that's how it works. i've looked it up more than once because it doesn't make sense. like, i'm pretty sure we had to renounce rui's rights just to do the kessler trade (his cap hold was probably large enough to not allow us accepting him into space), but we could have re-signed him (but not signed and traded him), and his bird rights would have resumed.

the catch is that you can't sign them using bird rights after waiving them. just their bird rights resume. this is what i saying about say, signing rui to a vet min after renouncing his rights. it would have had to have been vet min, but next year, we'd have been able to pay him the max if we wanted.

when you waive someone, they go on waivers, which means every team in the league gets a chance to claim that player if they're able to absorb the salary. that's why they say "cleared waivers".

in short, there's no great way to turn a S&T into a quick bird-rights-based raise, as i see it.


again, the theme of my last several posts is that one of my routes to kuminga was not possible. i forgot about the requirements on S&T deals from the sender's side.

the only thing that makes sense for kuminga is the four-teamer i suggested.

 

There’s a clause in the CBA that adjust those figures by the amount the cap is being inflated by yearly. I can’t remember the exact formula but it uses the current cap and divides it by the old giving you both the salary levels where the rules change and the amount you can take back in trades.