2025-26 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

It was cash. Most of the trades in the 7-teamer had already been reported far earlier, but they were folded into the 7-teamer bc it's beneficial for some financial or cap reasons that I don't totally understand.

But the Lakers draft trades were announced and made on draft night. Traded up from #55 to #45 from Chicago for $2.5 million. Then later traded up from #45 to #36 for Thiero for an undisclosed cash amount from Minnesota. Presumably more than $2.5 million. So Thiero cost us $5+ million, and hopefully will be well worth it.

https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2025-06-26/lakers-nba-draft-adou-thiero

 

Smart, Vincent, LaRavia, Vando, Ayton

That's a very good defensive lineup. Would trade off with the starters for all offense vs all defense possessions at the end of games, if we have enough timeouts and the situation warrants it.

For longer stretches of time, we'd have to mix the offense and defense players together. Something like Smart, Reaves, LaRavia, LeBron, Ayton could be a decent mix.

 

One possession on defense? Smart, Vincent, vando, lebron, and either kleber or Hayes.

 

Thank you for all the details

 

Yeah, this is good. I'd go Smart, Vincent, Vando, LeBron, Hayes here. Hayes is kinda light though, I'd still go Ayton against the bigger guys.

 

According to Cranjis' data, Rui would actually be in there. Smart, Vincent, Rui, Vando, Ayton.

 

I think we have better options than Lebron actually unless we're banking on that "one play" focus and reclaiming of lost athleticism type of miracle.

But even if quickness and speed have left the building, we do have size, strength, and smarts to rely on.

 

he can lock in and expend that kind of effort on one possession. the hoop iq and strength are huge. it's why doncic is a good defender, despite the bluster. i also think lebron would get more leeway from officials on defense than other players. like, late career jason kidd was just allowed to manhandle guys.

 

couldn't tell exactly what those stats capture--this is a frequent issue i have with the cranjis stuff i come across, lots of proprietary stuff that's likely based on really small samples--but if anything surprised me it was reaves and laravia grading out mostly positively.

 

https://www.bball-index.com

That's his site, where all the data comes from. There's some free data, and specialized data that starts at $5/month. I don't pay for it, and don't know for sure, but it looks pretty robust. They say the data is "currently used by NBA team front offices, NBA scouting teams, NBA analytics departments scouting services, NBA agents, local and national writers." I think that's because it's Synergy + other data. It seems to have tracking data on every single possession, so I don't think sample size is an issue, it uses every sample possible.


ETA: Found an article from 2018 that explains how they grade Perimeter Defense, Interior Defense, Offensive Rebounding and Defensive Rebounding. They've added other categories shown in the tweet graphic since then, but I imagine the methodology would be similar, to analyze play type tracking data regarding every type of possession.

https://www.bball-index.com/explaining-defensive-rebounding-talent-grades/

 

Just scouting more the Clippers are trying to out three teams. Harden Beal Collins Leonard 4 of their starters shoot the three.

Then Bogdanovic Paul Jones Jr. Dunn Lopez they just want to space you out and shoot you off the floor. As I’ve stated this will be a very tough matchup.

kind of reminds me of how hard it was to defend Curry and Klay. with the three.

I’m more concerned about the Clippers than I am Houston.

Houston has one guy I worry about Durant. Sengun we can negate. Thompson isn’t advanced offensively yet. And Van Fleet is good but he can disappear and shoot a team out of a game.

I still can’t believe how Phoenix didn’t demand Reed Shepard with Green when they needed a point guard for Durant. Reed Sheppard can be a problem to. He was great in summer league. How did Phoenix not draft the Chinese Jokic??? Yang. They will be kicking their selves.

Denver will be good but actually lose a little Porter jr. Leaving. He wasn’t fully healthy last season. Healthy the guy is a matchup problem.

Toughest playoff opponents I got for us are 1. OKC 2. Denver 3. Clippers 4. Houston 5. Minnesota 6. Golden State.

and I’m probably the only one in here and I’ll take it. But I got OKC 1. Us 2. In the conference we finished as a 3 seed with no Center.
us getting Ayton propels us to number 2 because I feel if we got Ayton we would’ve beat Minnesota beat the Warriors and faced OKC in the conference finals.

Love what we did with our bench and I think we addressed our issues. Reason I pay attention so much to the Clippers because outside of OKC they are the only other team to give Denver fits.

And they play ball movement basketball.

but I feel very comfortable with our squad. It’s gonna come down to a lot of defensive rotations on three point shots. Staying disciplined. Having Ayton for those rebounds will be huge.

Ayton will really allow Luka to have more spacing and allow him to have more options driving or getting more options on the jump shots with his ability to Lob. This makes the defense of teams so shaky. Cause LeBron is a tremendous Lob guy but now you still have to pay attention to him. This team really has what you look for in an offensive team.

 

Not concerned about Dallas Kyrie missing most of the season will hurt them. They will be hovering over play in and 8th seed.

 

ah, thanks. yes, i use the LEBRON stat app for lots of stuff. but i understand what those metrics are doing.

in the tweeted table, i think i get what they're generally saying, but i start getting concerned at the level of subjectivity on the front end of those stats. same reason i don't like the "blow by" stat, etc. the more room for interpretation, the more room for bias.

like when one is looking at film, how do we decide when we've got a "guarded playmaking talent" scenario? do we trust that the designation is agreed upon, both in terms of what constitutes "playmaking talent" and "guarding". as someone who works with complicated data, there's just...a lot of ways for this to be noisy and untrustworthy.

it's why i actually like some of the more ominbus stuff more. bigger samples, gets to the simplest question--are things going well when this guy plays?

 

The more I look at Denver, the more I think they're a little overrated. Going into the playoffs, they were the 4 seed and looked pretty lackluster down the stretch. It took the Clippers going full Clippers, and Harden going full Harden, to lose that series. Of course they gave OKC their toughest series of the playoffs, but that might have been more of an OKC coming of age thing than Denver actually being that good. I also think Jokic, and playmakers with size generally, are a bad matchup for OKC.

They traded MPJ for Cam Johnson, which is an upgrade really just because MPJ is so inconsistent. I think the best of MPJ stacks up with the best of Johnson, so that's more of a floor raiser than a ceiling raiser IMO. THJ, Bruce Brown and Val are better than what they had on the bench last year, but there's a reason those guys were available for cheap. I still think the big question for them is whether Murray can regain form. He just doesn't look the same physically as he did a couple of years ago. They don't really have another guard that can handle the ball, I guess Bruce Brown is kind of the backup PG?

They're going to be good, but they're beatable. Minnesota kind of owns them now. I think Luka is the single toughest player in the league for a defense built around Jokic to handle.

 

Sure, I guess, but it's still better than the eyetest imo. What defensive metrics do you like?

I also assume that his stats are based on analytical interpretation of Synergy data. I don't think he looks at film for every possession of every game and logs all these plays individually. Although he used to do something close to that for Lakers games. I'm guessing he assigns certain criteria to the Synergy data to qualify what counts as a "guarded playmaking scenario" or not. And you're right, what goes into that is kinda a proprietary black box afaik. But since it's based on the Synergy data, unless he's doing something wildly wrong, it should be pretty close to accurate.

Not trying to quibble about any of this. Just saying that the results track to me: Smart, Vando, Vincent, Rui, and Ayton being good defenders, Reaves and LaRavia being relatively good defenders when in the right roles, Luka and Knecht being sub-par defenders, and LeBron being average in the regular season (even if he can turn it up for stretches in the playoffs).

 

honestly, just straight D-LEBRON is the best one i've seen.

the issue is: what's "accurate". one issue in general is the implied typology. someone--or some computer--has to determine what constitutes an observation of a given kind, and that's where things get dicey. D-LEBRON doesn't require this level of specificity and thus isn't as susceptible to bias and error.

the main--and important-uncontrolled variable in O- and D-LEBRON is coaching, imo. some coaches just optimize their players more than others, i think. so you can have a guy who looks good defensively in one system and worse in another, etc.

yeah, it's close, i just don't know what to make of the separate columns, tbh. like if gabe vincent finds himself on an offensive rebounder (again, how do we define this), this may represent a failure somewhere else. interestingly, that particular data point is one that doesn't match my eye test, as i think he does a great job boxing out and fighting for rebounds at his size.

btw, another thing i don't love about these stats is the conversion to grades, as it hides total variability. some stats, the difference between top and bottom is nothing and as such, differences are basically noise. like, is deandre really an F guarding three point shooters? what does that even mean. i'd assume if he's close enough to be "guarding" a three point shooter, he's probably as effective as most.

anyway, the lebron app color codes to help interpret, but provides the numeric estimate as well, which helps me more than just the grades. but without having access to the full description and process by which one calculates a "guarded midrange talent" stat, i just can't really attend to it.

 

Regarding 3's made & %'s:

Luka (3.6, 37.9%) > Harden (3.0, 35.2%)
Reaves (2.7, 37.7%) > Beal (1.9, 38.6%)
LeBron (2.1, 37.6%) < Kawhi (2.1, 41.4%)
Rui (1.7, 41.3%) > Collins (1.5, 39.9%)

Collectively for these 4 starters:

Lakers (10.1, 37.7%) > Clippers (8.5, 38.1%)

The Lakers' 4 starters take and make more 3's than the Clippers, at a similar %.

Not gonna go though all the bench, but outside of Bogdanovic, our bench compares somewhat similarly or close enough.

I feel you.

 

I still am confused as to whether or not the “LEBRON” analytics for some reason as a “nod” to HIM were tied to James’s name or if the initials and what they stand for was just a total coincidence?

 

I don't know, that front line of Flagg, AD, Lively, with Washington and Gafford off the bench is an incredible rotation with zero down minutes that is gonna wreck a lot of teams. DLo, Klay, Christie, Exum, Marshall, and Martin at guard and wing are a capable enough mix of offense and defense to balance it out. I think they can fight for a 5-6 seed to stay out of the play-in and go straight to the playoffs, although you might be right, 7-8 is definitely a possibility. 4-9 is so tough, with us, Minnesota, Clippers, GSW, Dallas, and SA.

 

https://www.bball-index.com/lebron-introduction/

It's basically RAPM, adjusted for box score priors (PIPM), roles (shooters vs big men adjusts how you treat their 3's, etc), and luck (things like teammates' FT%'s which are outside your control).