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

We aren't far off..If Luka were healthy, we'd still be playing IMO.

 

I don’t think they would.Blown out the first 3 games that’s a gap even Luka can’t fill. I believe they may have gotten 2 maybe.

 

We got blown out, because we couldn't score in the 2nd halves IMO..Luka solves some of that. I honestly don't think OKC is as formidable without J Williams. I take the Spurs over them in 6. Maybe 5.

 

There's a difference between being realistic and wishful thinking.

Realistically, Reaves will be here. If I think we can win with him + Luka in the current NBA? Extremely unlikely.

And I'd add even less of a chance, if we run most of this roster back

 

That’s kind of first order analysis no? We got blown out so therefore we aren’t close. We had leads in the 4th quarter in 2 out of 4 games. In a third game we had a lead in the 3rd quarter. Somewhere along that, we couldn’t match one of their runs and they brought it home.

I also don’t buy that OKC has some infinite well of effort to draw upon, like if Luka was there, they all of a sudden play better. No. They had Chet having his best ever series, McCain did a Danny Green finals for the spurs impression from 3pt land, Ajay Mitchell played like the best player on OKC and both Hart and Wallace played amazingly well. They were better than us, we just kept SGA in check as per our game plan.

But surely a 37 points per game MVP level player evens things up when we couldn’t score. I think we would have been 2-2 instead of 4-0. After that, it’s anyone’s series.

 

To quote Vlade .... gloves off. Screw your wishful thinking vs reality. It's YOUR opinion. And no one is expecting us to run the same team back.

 

Just nonsense you can't do it with Reaves anywhere on this team, he's that bad that if we upgrade 4 spots with better all around players and defenders, in the variety of ways it might get done .... and go 11 deep .... he's just the anchor which means doom going forward. Talent be damned, and new ownership and resources and know how to build winning cultures and teams be damned. It's reality, not wishful thinking according to these guys piling on now.

 

I’m probably in a small minority where I believe we are the third best team in the league, and I believe the best team will get worse this offseason. (Don’t have an answer for the Spurs though)

I think if we bring back a team of

Luka / x
Reaves / Smart
x / Adou
Lebron / Rui
x / Hayes

We are in the mix with 7 rotation quality players. We have Kennard who I like as a premier shooter and high IQ there for the taking that I would bring back personally to make it 8 (but wouldn’t be opposed to an Ellis instead). Either way I want to lean into the shooting we have as a team.

We really need a starting SF and center. We have 3 draft picks and an MLE to make that happen. There will be good players this offseason being traded because of the cap situation and major moves being done where good parts could fall off.

 

I think they have a slight shot to win one but I won't bet on it. I think their room for error is so small everything would have to go right. It's the same over the past 3 years. It a team of hopes and wishes. For all the reasons I feared Lakers were not going to win became reality. I actually think Lakers were doomed from the start when Austin was challenged by JJ which I personally think messed with the teams chemistry that featured LeBron.

 

If Austin played 6th man like Manu who won 4 rings he would make a great addition to a championship team. However if the pay and role is to big then the odds of winning decreases quite a bit.