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

that's weird to me, given who's likely to be involved in a butler deal, right? i guess we'll find out eventually.

i'm really struggling to figure out who besides phx really should want in on this.

 

A lot of teams are wanting to use Detroit's space as a dumping ground. But they really only have enough to do that in one trade. So if they get more picks back out of this kinda deal, that could impact the landscape. Then Wiz and more so the Raptors have some talent ready to go out the door, so this could be holding up Jonas, Kuz, Olynyk, Brown, Mitchell, Poetl



Edit: also a follow up from Keith

 

I feel like this might be one of the worst excuses I’ve ever heard for a supposed Hall of Fame player to be compared to an average NBA center who’s having a great year

 

Rob Pelinka needs fired. Sweet Christ it has been time.

 

This just reaffirms that Rob is the one behind this AD exclusively at 5 stuff. Anthony Davis had been saying that he prefers the 4, since the day we traded for him. Pelinka has evidently decided that he's knows best, and damn what AD says, he needs to be the 5. If he continues to cheap out on bigs, with these minimum signings, so that he can constantly chase more guards. The blame for coming up short in the playoffs,should fall squarely into his lap.

 

I don't understand your comparison in the first place. Zubac is a 5, AD is a 4, what point are you trying to make? Zubac avg less than 1 rebound more per game than AD, playing his natural position, while AD plays out of his natural position as a 5. Never mind the pts, assists and blocks., AD puts up at 5.

I'm just not getting your point here.

We won a chip immediately after trading Zubac bro, the constant angst over him is kinda confusing.

 

In 2025 AD is mostly a 5 that can also play the 4. Look around the league at the guys playing the 4 and the guys playing the 5. AD looks more like the latter than the former, especially since he's a little bulkier and doesn't move quite as well on the perimeter as he did when he got here in 2020. But that's all semantics, the important part is that we get a 5 that's good enough to warrant playing AD at the 4.

 

So the new CBA hasn't exactly discouraged the star players, from demanding trades, and holding multiple team's trade prospects hostage, in the process? I guess Jimmy Butler, is also going to get his wish to be moved granted, just like all the high end guys do. New CBA or not.

 

He's a 5 because he's the best option we have at the position. That's the guy that picks the rosters fault.

Anthony Davis is a unique talent, it doesn't matter what other guys in the league look like, they are not Anthony Davis. The same can be said for Jokic, he looks like, a traditional 5. His game isn't the same as other traditional 5's though.

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned, or if it even matters. But, I wonder if AD has spoken with Lebron about Lebron moving to the 3. I feel that Lebron doesn't really care either way, but you never know. Maybe they did speak about it, and AD got Lebron's blessing about going public with his request to play the 4. Lebron moving to the 3 could be something that is more of a team concern that as a concern to him personally.

 

Trade him to China for God's sake

 

I've never seen it posted anywhere, that Lebron requested to play 4 exclusively. That just came along, with the AD is our 5 moving forward announcement.

Lol..I still remember when it came out, AD was speaking to the media, and was like
"Um..nobody discussed that with me!"

 

The cleanest trade the Lakers could make to satisfy AD would be something like Rui + Wood + 2029 1st (top-14 protected) + 2025 Lakers 2nd to Chicago for Vucavic + 2029 Bulls 2nd. Vucavic is old, but he (and his contract)are on Lebron's timeline and he helps maximize the two year window. Vucavic allows AD to slide over to the 4 with no drop-off in three-point shooting compared to Rui. Additionally, there is not a significant drop-off in terms of defense at the 3 with Lebron compared to Rui. This trade just doesn't improve our perimeter defense problem, but doesn't exacerbate it either. Maybe it actually helps if AD is motivated to prove his worth at the 4 and step out and defend on the perimeter. Also, Vando is coming back. Lakers could also still look into getting a Bruce Brown or somebody like that to help with perimeter defense. We would still have JHS/Hayes/Reddish/Vincent/Vando to move in a potential deal.

 

Vucevic is 41% from three this year but is a career 35% guy. 29% last season, 35% in 2023, 31% in 2022, 40% in 2021. I am significantly more confident in Rui maintaining his shooting splits than Vucevic doing so.

 

Rui avg 2.8 attempts at 38% from 3 in his 7 seasons in the NBA.

Vucevic avg 5 attempts at 36% from 3 in the last 7 seasons.

I'll take that from my 5, who is also going to give me double digit rebounding every night. No problem at all for me.

 

If we have Vincent, Vanderbilt and Finney-Smith in the playoffs rotation, I don't think that we need to be all that worried, about our defense.

 

Exactly. Vuc a much higher volume 3 pt shooter than Rui. This trade is the type of trade that would kind of make everybody happy. The Kessler detractors say that he clogs up the paint and would cost to many 1st to get him. Those in favor of Kessler like that he is a big body to defend larger bigs, he's an excellent rebounder, and shot blocker. Vuc would help space the floor, and would cost one protected 1st at the most. He provides similar body size and rebounding as Kessler, but he is 11 years older and doesn't provide the shot blocking. His age and lack of shot blocking are not as important when your talking about a big to complement AD, because AD himself is in the same age range as Vuc and AD provides more than enough shot blocking. In short, Vuc is a much better fit than Kessler, and would cost a lot less to get. This is similar to a DFS type if trade. I could see the Lakers doing something like this.

 

Rui doesn't offer much apart from good 3 spot up shooting, Vuc offers a lot more offensively.

 

Yes, there was just a comment above about there being no drop off in shooting between Rui and Vuc. That's the part I don't think is true.