2026-27 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

Everybody healthy?No.. I admire the optimism but our top 3, is not better than theirs IMO. Role players..they have more talent.

We have a Luka..that's our advantage, but Young, AD and Sarr closes the gap over Reaves and Kessler.

We aren't top 3, top 6 hopefully..Washington is definitely top 6 or better in the East.

 

Luka has plenty of excuses with this roster IMO. You haven't thought of, just how ugly Luka at PF, next to Kessler is going to look on defense...YET.

Walker aint AD, Gobert, or Gafford for that matter, when it comes to having to move his feet on D, and still be effective. That's the problem with him, and that's why he's been on the trading block, since his sophomore season. He's great at dropping coverage and standing in front of the basket. However if you force him to move laterally in any direction, he's toast. How do we expect him to compensate for Luka, when his guy gets by him? I'm sure every team on our schedule, is licking their chops, thinking about running P&R action against Luka and Kessler.

We don't have the wings, to press the ball strong enough, to limit the penetration, in order to help them out either.

Right now we are all offense with a stop gap at 5. Potential entertaining group, but not a contender. If we had an AD type at 5..that's another story, but we don't.

 

I think Luka is the best player but Washington might have us after that.

Luka > Dybantsa
Reaves >= Trae
Kessler =< AD
Grimes < George
Mamu < Sarr
Sexton = Tre
Carr =< Coulibaly
Jake < Ayton
Hardy < Champagnie
Knecht < Riley
Vando < Middleton
Adou < Whitmore
Bronny < Bub

Don’t sleep on the wizards. They’re starting 5 is tough and they’ve got a lot of guys who will develop on that team.

 

I tend to agree. Some issues I have with this team:

- We don’t have a finishing 5 that works. Sexton is probably too weak defensively? Kessler could get played off the floor - Gobert, Clingan, Allen, iHart do at times too. So we have Reaves, Luka and Grimes, who else right now?

- Everyone needs to play out of their skin to be a contender. Luka needs to be in MVP form and maybe the best player in the world. Reaves needs to become a legit second option and an All Star. Kessler needs to be DPOY level and not get played off the floor. Grimes needs to become a third option and primary POA defender. We need a 5th starter still. And most likely we need one of Carr, Adou or Jake to become a top 8 rotation player. It’s a lot to ask from everyone.

- Defensively, how are we going to be a top 10 defense? We don’t have strong POA or wing defence right now…

- Health: if you lose Kessler, Luka or Reaves for 20+ games we are probabaly in the play in.

Ultimately this looks like a good step forward, but it’ll take time to build everything out and we aren’t a contender yet. If we had more talent like Smart and Lebron with this team, I think we’d be a contender with:

Luka / Sexton / Bronny
Reaves / Smart
Grimes / Carr / Adou
Lebron / Jake / Vando
Kessler / Mamu / Looney

 

We move forward with what we have, and hope it all clicks. JJ doesn't want to play a big period IMO; Which makes giving up soo much for Kessler a head scratcher. He shoots in the 50% at the FT stripe too. Between the hack a Kessler strategy on one end, and the P&R targeting on the other....I don't see him in the closing lineup frequently.