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

two things i'm thinking about in light of the recent extensions in atlanta and phx.

1. if we're operating over the cap, why haven't we just extended rui? it's hard to follow all the rules, but i *think* we could sign him to a one-year extension at like 20m, after which he'd be immediately tradable. why would he sign it? two reasons:
-because i don't think he's got a market over mle.
-it would retain his bird rights here or with another team

biggest contract i think rui could sign is 4/65ish, but i don't know if he would do that, anyway. if he could make, say, 25 of that in one year while preserving the ability to negotiate another longer term contract next year (perhaps not bound by the mle), it seems like a reasonable gamble for him.

why would we do it? retain an asset to play or to hold for trade (now or later), depending on our other planned moves, we could bump the salary up substantially as a sweetener without impacting tradability (it would still be expiring, and it wouldn't become like, byc or anything).

maybe a cap wizard knows why we wouldn't do this, but it just contributes to a continued sense i have that we may not be operating over the cap...

2. this one's crazy, but you know who's a lob-catching center that luka wanted to play with? mark williams. he's RFA. phx just signed goodwin and gillespie to extensions, which i think puts them near the luxury tax. signing williams to an RFA deal that starts anywhere over 20 per puts phx into the second apron.

highly doubtful we do this given ALL the history here, but we do know rob kind of carries torches. that said, i think we probably made the right choice not to trade for him considering his injuries to end the season, and he probably still hates us, so this doesn't make sense.

i had just kind of forgotten he was RFA.

 

half the league is supposedly chasing trey murphy. that should be interesting to see how high they could drive the price there.

i'm still interested in herb/missi.

 

Would love to get a 3&D big as well, but Kuzma is not a 3 (he shoots below league average), and even less of a D.

 

Rui wants to secure Financial security this off season with a long term contract. Your 4 yr. 65 million contract would be good for him and the Lakers.

 

I agree with this one. That'd be a very tradeable contract. And while the fit may not be great here, a big forward that is a historically great shooter in the playoffs has value.

 

The C Bags. This tells me they looked at their team and said we can’t just be a three point shooting team.

so now you go Derrick White Peyton Pritchard shooters. Jayson Tatum shooters. Gianiss not a shooter. But you can go inside. Lob Anchor protects the middle. Perimeter defense.

probably thier best perimeter low post defender since Garnett.

you’re losing a lot with Brown. Legit star. Two way player. Going up. Had an amazing season. Let’s face it. He’s the reason the C Bags won that championship against Dallas it wasn’t Tatum. Pretty durable. I keep pointing to durability.

Now if your Boston two of your guys have had major soft core tissue injuries. Tatum coming off the Achilles. Giannis with the Calf’s be careful. They have to be cautious. They are rolling the dice. Are they better than New York???? No.


Knicks still go Brunson OG Hart Bridges Towns there’s continuity there. And they still space you out.

Gianiss ain’t spacing. Now he’ll protect the paint and he’s a better perimeter defender than Wemby. I’m guessing they say well we have better perimeter shooters than the Spurs. My assessment better hope Tatums all right.

Jordan never traded Scottie. Steph never traded Klay.

As for Miami. What are they doing??? Bam and Gianiss is going to win the championship??? Where’s the spacing? Where’s the shooting??? You’re trading your best shooter Herro. Better lean into your player development. Wiggins isn’t a shooter. And Mitchell isn’t a shooter. I’m kind of perplexed.

 

problem is we had him on 3/50, and it was NOT a tradable contract. older and on a longer deal is not going to help matters.

anyway, my real question was that if we were operating over the cap, why wouldn't we just extend him early so that we have the number in place while making other moves and don't have to worry about poaching. makes me think we might have conceded like we did with DFS last year.

ruh roh on the market setting for reaves. this one starts at 47 per if it's a max raise situation (guessing it is).

 

agree that boston's kind of playing with fire. at this point, brown can't be happy with the organization, and while he is under contract for a while, it's a big contract. so if teams know you want to move on from him (or he wants out), the offers might not be what people are imagining. iow, you better just close this and get giannis.

 

Is it weird that I am cool with that?

 

not like they have anyone else to pay. for a team like the wizards where the goal is just to make the playoffs and keep fans interested, this is fine

 

Luka is just asking for shooters and a lob-threat big that could block shots. Lakers at miniumum need to at-least do that. Ideally, those shooters would also be defenders, but the Lakers need to at least satisfy that minimum criteria. I have heard various folks saying you are looking for a top-8 rotation player with the #25 pick, not neccesarily a starter. I mean, you could get the best shooter in the draft, Evans. Or a lob-threat big-man who could shoot a little in Veesaar. You are at least satsifying that criteria in these players, and they are both pretyt much plug-and-play. Best option would be to include it in a trade for a starter though.

 

Going to be a wild 24 hours.

Either one only being a 2 team deal isn't great for us, though.

 

are we positive the miami one would stay a two-team deal? if so, wouldn't milwaukee consider divesting itself of myles turner and/or portis? i'd think we might have some interest in either or both.

vando/ayton/knecht/#25 for turner?

turner/hayes/vet min beefy big
lebron/rui/thiero
luka/laravia
reaves/kennard/bronny
smart/(ellis or thybulle?)/nick smith

in this scenario, we still have our future firsts and swaps.

didn't get lob threat (but did upgrade center), still pretty weak defensively on the perimeter.

not my dream.

 

What would be the ticket sales difference between Jaylen Brown and Herro and the rest? Like, I get there's some, but either way......

I can't remember what trade it was, it might have been the Luka trade with us, but there was a trade that happened recently that I remember thinking "Okay, but like.....who won in this deal?" I know Giannis on the C Bags gives them an edge, but it doesn't fully feel like it's guaranteed to be enough, but even Miami, I sit there and think the same thing....like either trade will shift the East, but like........does either team become INSTANT Finals Guarantees? I don't feel like it fully does.

 

Someone pointed out that though it might be two teams, it might end up like the Durant trade and be like 8 teams deep by the time Training Camp begins, because so many different moving parts happened at once. So, maybe we hold our breath and see if we inadvertently get involved without it being fully official?

 

exactly so why trade that #25 pick? You get that what you need on the cheap on a rookie deal. On team control.

 

The Miami trade package is way better.

you’re getting Ware Herro Jaquez Jokic and 3 number 1’s!!!!!!

what am I missing here??? For a guy who says he wants out?

take the Miami offer.

Luka saying he needs the lob threat and shooters. Dude you did good with what you had last season. You got hurt. We were the #3 seed. I don’t get it. It’s not like we played OKC with Luka and this team and got swept 4-0. We didn’t see how it looked in the playoffs.

with this team we beat the Rockets I would debate Ayton outplayed Sengun. And the Rockets were a young 3-D team. Rui bought it LeBron bought it.

the next series against OKC we were in every game without our best player. I think we win if he plays.

so I really don’t think it was an on court problem. It was a Luka not being on the court problem.


Rob did good last off season with what he was dealt. Picked up Kennard for nothing. If Kennard was on the Knicks we’d be like see that’s the missing piece you need. 3 point shooting off the bench.

this is Like Luka saying the tour sucked and we didn’t have ticket sales. When he is the lead singer and he couldn’t get his voice right. And we had the bassist singing. Well let’s see how the concert tour sales when our lead singer is singing lead vocals.

 

Damn. It.



Expecting a youth movement in Dallas. If only they would trade with us again.






Hopefully their former analytics gurus we've hired know how to get some of them here on friendly deals.

 

wonder which pick the mavs are hoping to improve upon? i know atlanta has shown interest in gafford, and they're one spot up from dallas, but maybe they mean moving up from their 30th? feel like we could help there?

never expected to get kessler.

the younger players with high upside thing is interesting. wonder what kind of buy-low guys they think are out there. last year they surprised us with laravia. not sure he was a "high upside" type, but definitely someone we thought had room to grow.