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

yeah, i'm leaving dunn open and banking on the half a wide open three he might make isn't the difference in the game. iow, i play all three of those guys the same way defensively, stats be damned.

maybe i'm just still a fultz believer and shouldn't be. it's definitely a red flag that orlando wasn't interested in retaining him at any price.

 

I think I’m done with DLo after this season, unless he proves everyone wrong and finally plays up to his potential in the playoffs. I’m already looking forward to more younger guys developing over the next few seasons.

 

Dlo could be a solid microwave 6th man for us. We might as well keep him and see how we do. He is probably worth more to us than to other teams. Then if we could trade at the deadline if an opportunity comes up.

 

The Lakers have been most frequently connected with Valanciunas, but L.A. has also been reluctant to give up either of its tradeable draft picks. If and when Valanciunas hits the market, there figures to be ample competition. He is, after all, a legitimate 6-foot-11 center who averaged 12.2 points and 8.8 rebounds last year.

And the Wizards wisely scooped him up on a three-year, $30 million contract to open free agency. The expectation is that Washington will begin looking for a deal for Valanciunas in December, when he becomes eligible to be traded. Expect competition, though.


WTF.Why he signed in first place

 

felt like this was obvious at the time, but like bogdanovic, i don't think it will work the way they're planning.

valanciunas just did it for the guaranteed cash.

 

Hope we don't give a FRP for Valanciunas

 

depends. if it's attaching a lotto-protected first that turns into seconds plus a guy who's not doing anything for us, i'm down. i'm sure that's what we tried in june/july, but couldn't get a bite. well, we probably tried to do it with 2nds, and i don't blame the front office for that, as cap space rentals this summer were mostly just 2nd rounders.

anyway, i'll be surprised if the wiz get a first for jonas. what they're probably (wisely) aiming for is a reverse rui (a young player who's floundering somewhere else and might be good there). you'll laugh, but jhs would be such a piece, imo.

 

I get the protection but it's still one less pick to deal for another player.
Regarding picks, my take is:
- I'm only sending a pick if we're going all-in on this Bron/AD window (meaning sending all our picks and potentially swaps)
- '29 and '31 picks will be when Bron is retired and AD is 36 and 38. There's no big FAs available anymore, so we're just committing to suck heavily after Bron retires until early 30s.
- We won't have multiple picks to deal until 2028
- Every odd year we may not have our picks too, depending on the protections
- If not wrong, our 2027 pick is top4 protected, which leaves us a window to tank hard after Bron retires (which would mean AD would probably not re-sign too)
- Best case scenario is using the 2 picks for someone that can co-lead with AD after Bron retires. Dejounte was that guy (this still pisses me off). Maybe another guy pops up
- So, if we are committing to that, to be a top contender we need: a POA guard defender, a 3&D wing to pair with Bron and a bruising center
- We have 2 picks, so if we give one for Valanciunas, even if protected, we only have one to get one of the other 2 needs

Valanciunas is definitely the key for us to beat Denver. But they lost KCP so I'm not so sure they'll be the team to beat. On the other hand, he's also playoff playable against Minny and Dallas. He can also face OKC and play when they play Hartenstein, so there's a good case to be made that he can be highly valuable for us throughout the postseason.
In any case, from the 3 needs I highlighted above, the center is the lowest ranked for me

I'm with you that it may be a Bogdanovic situation and they can't get a pick for him. But yeah, who knows what happens in the next 6 months, maybe we are able to get him without the pick and that would be awesome

 

i agree with most of what you said above about long-term planning, but i actually am not that bummed about missing out on murray. he's a third guy, and having him in the fold post-lebron/AD is worth nada. this is in keeping with your other points, though.

my point was that not all first rounders are created equal. if we're in a tanking position later, a lotto-protected first is basically trading nothing, right? the opportunity cost is if a major FA comes available and you just need pick fodder to make it work. it seems super unlikely, but i'm guessing that's why we're holding these picks until at least december/february.

 

After a summer rife with trade speculation, Jazz All-Star forward Lauri Markkanen becomes eligible to sign a lengthy and lucrative extension with Utah on Tuesday. There are plenty of particulars worth examining regarding Markkanen’s earning potential on a new contract. But the most integral aspect of negotiations between Markkanen’s representation and the Jazz front office — perhaps the most critical element of Utah’s overall team build — is simply what date Markkanen actually puts pen to paper.

if Markkanen waits to sign his new deal until Wednesday or later, Markkanen won’t be eligible to be traded during this upcoming 2024-25 season. He wouldn’t be eligible to be traded for six months after his new agreement, in accordance with the collective bargaining, which would fall one day after the Feb. 6 trade deadline
All indications, though, are that Markkanen intends to delay his signature for that exact purpose, league sources told Yahoo Sports. Markkanen was traded twice in the span of 12 months

 

i was coming here to post this. this is the article.

first, markkanen, like grant in portland, seems happy where he is and doesn't really want to be traded. i get that, but lots of fans seem to think all players should want to be on winning teams right now, first and foremost. i don't think that's true, and i don't look down on guys who have other priorities. i don't think markkanen or grant doesn't want to win--i just think they're happy and ok being patient. similarly, their teams don't need to move them. golden state was supposedly holding podziemski out of trade talks, and that's f***ing ridiculous. i'd have hung up, too. and sac was supposedly "close" yet fox and sabonis were staying and they also were reluctant to move keegan murray? c'mon.

any most interesting to me in the article was this bit:

i'm still hoping we can at least move dead weight into cap space as part of a three-team deal that involves a center coming back to us. utah should, in theory, have some cash left even after signing markkanen.

 

separately: can yurtseven get a camp invite? pappagiannis? anyone large?

 

I think Murray can be a number 2. In any case, he didn't have to be that here, apart from maybe a year or 2 between Bron retirement and the arrival of a new superstar.
He averaged close to a triple double (on 21ppg) in his last year in San Antonio, plus 2 steals. Low TO too, he's consistently on the top of A/T ratio with Tyus Jones. He was All Star and 2nd on MIP award. He was so good, Spurs had to trade him to have a shot at Wemby.
I think he'll be amazing with CJ. We shall see

Yeah I thought that the other day, maybe we could find some international player that could fill that void.
I think we'll give Wood another shot, it seems. I hate him lol

 

Murray defense has nose dived after his ACL. He went from good to frankly bad particularly off ball. That CJ Murray backcourt is going to have defensive problems.

NO has talent but it's a bit of Frankenstein. Not sure how they'll all fit when it really matters

 

yeah, if you think we don't have centers...yipes. i think they were banking on moving BI for a center, but i'm not sure there's a market that makes sense for that after allen re-upped in cleveland.

also, murray has always given me westbrook vibes in certain ways, and while some say his defense dropped off because of atlanta or whatever, there's also a reasonable fear his defense dropped off because of the injury. we'll see soon enough, though.

i agree that the NO back court is going to give up as many drives as ours did last year, but they don't have AD. they better score a lot.

 

It's a fair take. I'm still in the club that playing alongside Trae is just a nightmare defensively and mentally. Atlanta as a team always looked like a mess too. Just a terrible pairing.
Offensively, CJ is a scorer rather than an orchestrator and I think it will play better to Dejounte's strengths. He doesn't chuck the ball for 20 seconds before launching a logo 3.
I think it also played to Dejounte's mind how weird was his pairing with Trae. He got less comfortable offensively and that carries to the defensive end. Your mood and flow gets broken and it shows. He was balling when Trae was out, he had a few 40pt games and looked more comfortable

But yeah, this will get proven in a few months. I hope he sucks, so I can live with us not getting him

 

i don't think we had a good path to him, tbh. unless we wanted to give up reaves. and that doesn't make sense to me.

 

Whoa!!! This is all news to me that Murray had an ACL injury in his recent past, and that that is a likely reason his D hasn't seemed as good as when he was at San Antonio. And they wanted two picks PLUS Reaves for him out of us and the Laker tax. Eff that front office in all their ears. (thanks to Dexter's sister for that LOL) Plus there was some really dismissive debate against me saying I wouldn't give up Reaves for him "in a heartbeat" with my belief AR does more things for the team and still hasn't reached what HIM's prime is going to look like.

 

He went for Daniels and Nance (filler), plus 2 picks. One of them is ours this year, which should be mid-round. Just saw that the other is the LEAST favorable of Bucks/Pels in 2027, top4 protected (ie. another mid round to late).

The picks are substantially worse than ours. Maybe they wanted "earlier picks", but c'mon. So it's borderline a Daniels for Murray trade. Is Daniels that good? In his 2 years he averaged 20 mpg, 4.8ppg, 3.5rpg, 2.5apg and 1.1spg. Are they that high on him? Isn't Max at least a similar talent? On top of better picks? Plus DLo as a filler, coming off the bench and potentially being a trade asset on the deadline (we know how player are better seen by the league when not in LA)?

I'm even more pissed, those picks are awful.
Maybe we really didn't want to send both picks with fear that Dejounte declined post injury like Pioneer suggested. Afff I'm mad