2024-25 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

I don’t believe JJ will play any lineup with two guys who can’t shoot.The Lakers are going to launch 3’s

 

Isn’t he injured? Yep!

 

Oh okay, my bad! Does anyone know who has the room to absorb Wood and Reddish? They make $5,499,986 combined.

Transaction 1: Reddish, Wood, and 2025 2nd to a team for a top 55 protected distant 2nd.

Transaction 2: Trade Russell, Hachimura, JHS, top 4 protected 2029 1st, and a 2028 pick swap to Brooklyn for Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith

Transaction 3: Sign Trent for TPMLE

Transaction 4: Convert Castleton to a minimum contract

Transaction 5: Sign Kuhse to two-way contract

PG: Trent/Vincent/Bronny
SG: Reaves/Christie/Lewis
SF: DFS/Johnson
PF: James/Vanderbilt
C: Davis/Hayes/Castleton

Two-Ways

SF: Hinson
PF: Traore
PG: Kuhse

 

We can't send the 2026 pick
No way I'm sending out a pick for Vuc.
Why Utah does that?

 

yeah, no way bulls get anything from me for vucevic. that deal might be possible if utah gets a few seconds and the bulls get nada beyond rui/wood.

i doubt sexton is in utah's long-term plans, so dlo's expiring contract is probably worth about the same to them. they're clearly not trying very hard to win next year.

 

Creative idea. I’m sure some of the best ideas are the ones that never come to light and we never hear about.

If Sexton is a shooting guard, do we want him taking time away from Reeves? If we ship out, DLO, are we covered on PG with Dinwiddie and injury dude?

 

I think we would have Sexton run “point”.


Sexton / Dinshitty / Gabe
Reaves / Christie
LeBron / Knecht
Davis / Vando
Vucevic / Hayes

 

Utah gets an expiring and is in full tank.

 

I'd trade Tinkerbell for Vucevic straight up. He averaged 18pts and 10.5 rebs in 76 games last season. 18 and 11 in the previous season in 82 games. He's worth a protected 1st IMO. That 26 pick isn't going to be all that anyway. We aren't falling into the lottery in 1 season.

 

We can't send the 26 pick because of the Stepien rule. We don't have the 2027 pick and you can't not have a 1st pick in two consecutive years. We can only send 2029, that's the earliest we have to send.
By that time, Vucevic isn't playing.
He also doesn't raise the bar for us enough to mortgage our future. We would still be a borderline top 6 team.
He's a bad defender too so we would be in trouble when AD is out.
He's also not playing 30+ minutes because you want AD playing 5 for long stretches.
Without DLo, our 3rd best player last year, we would only have Gabe and JHS at PG and no slots or money to get another one. That's not good.

For all that, he's not worth a FRP

 

Why do we want AD playing long stretches at 5? Who made that some ironclad rule? AD doesn't want to play long stretches at 5, been saying that since he came here. Vucevic could play along side AD, he's no stiff. He'd be better on D than Hayes or Wood at 5.

We'd have a better team for the next two seasons. He shows up in the playoffs too, I'd rather chase a chip right now, than worry about what might happen 5 years from now.


If we traded Tinkerbell we'd still have options, for now Vincent, Dinwiddie or JHS. He was our 3rd most talented player, but he disappears in the playoffs or generally against good teams.

Top 15 protection on the 29 pick then. Maybe the Bulls just want to salary dump him.

 

Seeing some prominent members of Lakers Twitter responding to this as if it’s legit

So I’m just posting this here to warn yall not to get too excited if this comes across your feed

This is an aggregation of a dude from “Heavy.com”. Browsing their NBA section it is mostly just clickbaity articles of fantasy Trade Machine stuff. Never heard of Sean Deveney as a respectable source

His article about WCJ seems purely speculative from an anonymous source who simply thinks Carter might make sense for the Lakers. No reporting on actual discussions.


One guy of interest, though, who could help the Lakers check a few boxes remains a possible trade target: Magic center Wendell Carter Jr.

And one executive said he’s still the kind of player the Lakers should be looking for. “Fairly young, probably a little undervalued because of his red flags (injuries) and still tapping into his skillset,” the exec told Heavy Sports. “The contract is right, it makes sense for them. That’s a guy they’re monitoring, but a lot of teams are.”

There are a number of WCJ fans across the league, and he remains a strong candidate for a trade as the swap market comes into focus, a process that might yet be slowed by the leaguewide focus on Markkanen.

Still, asked for a role player who makes sense for the Lakers, the executive said last month: “Wendell Carter Jr. I think he’s someone they’d go after. He could be a beast as a backup on that team.”

 

who is moses brown?

NEVER MIND he is a stiff we added to the summer league roster.

 

Too late, I'm excited.

 

First, AD wants to play the 5.
Second, the ceiling of the team is with AD as 5.
Even in the bubble title, AD at 5 with Markieff was our closing lineup in many games.
AD destroys any center as long as it's not a bruiser. And it's not that he sucks,but he's just less comfortable and it wears him down to fighting those guys down low.

I don't think our team is better with Vuc instead of DLo.
Dinwiddie is not part of the roster and won't be until we free up roster spots AND enough money to pay him below the 2nd apron. With that trade we would do neither.

 

You kind of have to play AD full time at the 5 now... if you start another center next to him, you're gonna end up with 40 year old Lebron chasing around wings. Sure AD can chase the wing but that's gonna tire him out.

 

WCJ would be a great add

 

AD wants to play 4, he will play 5 if he has to. He's said that in every single season, that he's been here. He was 1st Team All NBA as a PF, in New Orleans and here.

The team’s ceiling depends on the players on it, if Javale or Dwight had the skillset of Vucevic, AD wouldn't have played as much at 5 as he did. The guy solves two issues, he can play 5 next to AD, and he hits the boards hard. The dude has avg over 11 rebs for 6 years straight. That's an impact player, that would help AD, and also help Lebron. James is the 2nd best rebounder on the team, and he's still a better defender than Rui, or Austin on the wing at 39. Maybe if we didn't ask him, to have to board at a high level every night, and score, he might be able to conserve more energy?

It's more than one way to be successful in the NBA, it all depends on the talent that you have to work with. Who ever thought a center could be your PG? Then Jokic showed up.

If you think AD destroys Centers, he can damn sure destroy power forwards. I think we'd be a better team, much better defensively, just different on offense. The Chokeolo experiment, isn't going to work IMO.

Flip Rui and Lewis for him then, that frees up another roster spot to boot. Then sign Spencer and move Chokeolo for something else later. If AD is playing more 4, we don't really need Rui with Vanderbilt here.