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

i think i'm mostly just anti-cult of personality/hero worship in general, and i find when nba gms are at the heart of it, it's extra stupid. i reject the idea that dropping sam presti anywhere results in success, which is why i reject the idea that because okc has him in charge, they're guaranteed to continue their recent success well into the future. indeed, we have very concrete evidence that this very specific person can screw up this very specific situation. it annoyed my when everyone anointed daryl morey (see how that turned out once his one lucky turn withered), and this is the same thing to me.

btw, just now realizing that both gm's star turns were at least partially the result of the nba completely losing its mind regarding the officiating of a single player (to the exclusion of literally every other contemporary player).

so, things become good decisions because of who made them. it makes sense to pin hopes to topic and sorber, but not to say, knecht and thiero. i can already hear the laughs there, but...why?

 

I’m not sure that Presti is the sole force behind their success, I highly doubt it to be honest, it would be a whole systematic group. Morey as an example was extremely gimmick based - let’s tank until we get a generational franchise player. That ideal has basically been removed now with the draft changes.

But OKC’s front office seems to have a much deeper bag of tricks, I also think they’ve learned from their mistakes of the past. They really fumbled the Westbrook, Durant, Harden, Ibaka core and failed to put the right pieces around them. This time around they’re building very well.

One of my favorite things they’ve done during their rebuilding years - and what I believe teams like the Nets should be focusing on - was lease players for a season or two while they rehab their value and then move them on. You get some draft capital when you take them on and then more capital when you move them to contenders. It’s set them up just as much as the PG trade that everyone quotes. I also like how those leaded vets imprinted really good work ethic and habits for the developing youth.

Another thing I like is they didn’t tank every year, they did a season or two where they were awful and then they rebounded and tried to win some games. Setting a losing culture for half a decade leaves bad habits and a real rotten core to your franchise that’s hard to turn around.

Obviously we can’t do any of these things, so I admire other stuff we can do - and at times it’s disappointing when we play it too safe or don’t attempt creativity outside the box from a front office.

 

They tanked their a** off for Chet Holmgren.

 

Yeah. Wife (and kids honestly) like LA and that's playing a big role here.

Honestly, he painted himself into an unnecessary corner. Should've just had a clear the air meeting with the front office and came back to us on a minimum. No team he is considering is a better fit for him than us.

Oh well.

 

again, we don't get to tank, and we don't get to rent. we don't get to trade star-level players or big names for smaller parts, and we don't get to basically field full developmental rosters for two to three years in a row. and had the clippers not been incredibly stupid, okc would look more like the other teams trying to do that (e.g., brooklyn). brooklyn tried/is trying the rehab thing with mpj. nobody's fooled, apparently.

okc's most successful "rehab" case was trading still superstar and franchise icon westbrook for chris paul and 2 1sts. again, if the lakers did this, the calls for the firing of the gm would have been deafening. the person would never have gotten to see the vision through, so they wouldn't attempt it. they also got to turn around and dump paul for a single 1st and absolute junk in an effort to lose hard for a couple years. again, just imagine rob pelinka throws this idea out there.

i'm guessing you're throwing al horford in there, but they didn't rehab anything there. they got a first to eat his large deal, then dealt him for another bad large deal (kemba walker) and another 1st (fun story there--that pick became alperen sengun, whom okc traded to houston for two s***ter future firsts, one of which turned into seconds and the other was used to move up to take the since-dumped ousmane dieng).

i'm also not sure that this strategy is an innovation--that no team has ever taken on contract for a pick or picks before presti got in the business of just stacking these on top of each other.

to me, the linchpin is most definitely the paul george trade. without it, everything else is moot. and that wasn't special insight or strategy. it was dumb luck that kawhi demanded the clippers get george (seemed like a mistake to me even at the time, given the clips had basically a playoff team in place to just add leonard to). nobody knew SGA was going to blow up (oh wait, doc rivers ALWAYS knew just...said nothing while the world burned), else it wouldn't have required 7 additional assets to get the deal done. presti didn't know. frank/ballmer didn't know. lucky.

pretty sure if sean marks got that gift, the nets would be in GREAT shape right now, too.

 

NEW Shams Lebron Team INFO, Swingman Returns & 9 NEW Signings Coming

 

and got the lotto luck not to move down, and got the pick in a year where there were at least 2 obvious good players.

imagine being like washington and atlanta, and finally winning the lottery only for the best players to be guys like risachier and sarr. luck.

 

Well, trying not to interject msyself into another round of the Pelinka wars, but I do think too much of the pro - Pelinka angles focus on explaining why another GM isn't actually that good. It's just a tough way to argue for someone IMO.

As a frequent critic, I think he has shown the ability to get moves over the finish line but should just focus on tightening up the finer details of his moves and really work with the new owners to establish an identity and culture for the franchise. A real vision for what the franchise will look like moving forward. I also think that a lot of the more ridiculous media takes fall flat over time and can be managed effectively by just adding some media savvy folks to the front office.

But he's got some big moves under his belt. Naturally that includes landing Luka. Build a real team around him (which it looks like we are doing) and he can make his case with more rings.

Finish staffing up and show the league a new day is finally here and a lot of the lingering doubts around him go away.

 

again, where is this a pro-pelinka argument? it's anti-"presti is a singular genius" argument. i use rob as a counterpoint because a) he works for the lakers and b) everyone seems to agree he's a moron.

my repeated argument is basically that there's no such thing as a great gm. this doesn't elevate rob pelinka--it explains why i'm not bothered by him as much as others. as long as you're not kings/pelicans management (again, pretty disturbed our hires were from there, lol), it's mostly just fairly similarly qualified people with different sets of goals and circumstances.

edit: btw, another cautionary tale in great gms is kevin pritchard, who built a brand on bilking everyone and then crashed his own team into the side of a mountain. time will tell if maybe brad stevens has been high on his own supply recently, too. one derrick white move is good. getting that second one is harder than people think...

 

I use Pro-Pelinka here mainly just to group together thoughts from a number of posters. I did not tag you because I'm not trying to single you out here. I also agree that some of the Anti-Pelinka stuff on the other side is ridiculous and over the top. Particularly from some of the other front offices sharing things with the media.

I tend to think that there is just no way to remove the risk from any sports move, so no matter how good the front office or a GM is, they will all have some decisions that look bad. So I don't think our thoughts there are really that far apart.

 

I sincerely hope Rob has a Plan B in his pocket because I got a feeling Lebron is going to Miami or Philly. Then Kuminga will head to Cleveland. Kuz or Hunter wouldn’t be a bad fallback at all for one season.

 

probably not. this is my point about presti--if SGA is who everyone thought he was, and the clips perform a everyone expected (top 4 basically throughout the kawhi/pg era), the trade doesn't look good. instead, both things broke his way. but people act like this was a clear plan that was going to succeed from day one, which it most certainly was not. it wasn't even his plan, lol. it was kawhi and PG's!

 

i still believe we have something beyond kuminga. it won't be nearly as good as getting kuminga would be, but i don't think we're going to be sold on mamu, thybulle, or williams (or laravia, knecht, vando) as the 5th starter.

if we are, i will agree that the offseason fell short of my hopes.

i feel like those 2nds we picked up in the ayton trade weren't just for a future rainy day. that's not usually how we operate.

 

IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With that, everything else can fall into play.

So, what's the gut reaction now? Get Kuminga or Cavs go get him?

 

Also.......nobody mention the Player Option on here........remember how everyone on here gets triggered by those?

 

frustrating that he's willing to take that paycut to play on a team he has zero connections to, but was demanding top dollar to play in LA

he for sure wanted to go east where things are easier. and i get the feeling that there was beef with pelinka/the front office that contributed to this as well. not wanting to be second fiddle behind luka probably played a role too

 

Right on point.

Yeah I'm feeling Kuz is the easiest one to get. He got very mature, noticed it in his press conferences in the last couple years. He was pretty bad with Giannis but that was an odd fit.
He's not the defender we need there, so he's basically a worse option than Rui, but he's better than the current options and as an expiring, it might be the best option.
Although I see the expiring as a potential issue. Either we trade him at the deadline or we are forced to re-sign for whatever because he will expire to vacuum and we won't get any cap space. Tricky one

Oh wait, Dallas probably likes that expiring. Maybe we can get on a 3-team trade where Kuz goes to Dallas and PJ to us? Bucks would be fine with Vando's contract and might accept only seconds

 

Well, the sixers are doomed...lol.

 

Yeah tht kind of rubs me the wrong way as well, couldn’t take 4 million per here and wanted the bag.