Potential Free Agent/Trade/Sign Tracker, '25-'26 Season

KayDee55 said:
Stats, even the advanced stats, dont always tell the truth. Never rely on them, rely on watching games.
His ridiculously good rebounding vanished, when it was most needed, and Kevon effing Looney outrebounded him.
His orchestrating, when it was most needed, vanished against the Wolves, when he had 2 assists.

In every game that really counts, our opponent outplays us because of a weakness created by him. It happened twice now.
What is unfathoamable is, that even after failing always, never really succeeding, the "fans" are not seeing his weaknesses on the court, and point to stats.
Watch him play and you will watch him get outplayed, always when we need him the most.
He is not the main offensive orchestrator, which is why almost everyone agrees that we need a real PG. He never will be the main offensive orchestrator on a championship contender.
He is not the number one scoring option, i think most of us agree here, too. And he never will be the number one scoring option on a good team.
He is one of the best rebounders, i'll give him that.
Is that someone worth almost 45/50 mio? He hogs so much of our cap, while not providing equal value, that is why we will not be able to put together a team that will be able to go deep in the playoffs, as long as he is here, with that contract.

Like i said, he is a good player, and has a place in the NBA. There are some teams that can mask his weaknesses, but we arent one of them, not with this cost structure, and not with his contract.

And yeah, we get caught up on him not being a rim protector, because thats the key skill that we need from him to get better. He just doesnt have it. Even teams like Boston get eliminated in the Playoffs, when their inside D is bad. Can you tell me who is in the finals, and who their bigs are, and what their bigs are known for?
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DHO merchant
 
Tetsujin said:
So we don’t have to package him with an unprotected first and literally all of our second round picks to get a protected first back?
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Ummm no. I mean we have all watched this team. I’ve been in the Domas bandwagon as much as others but I’m starting to think we deal him for defensive 3 and D wings/good to great PG and replace him in the middle with someone better defensively. Improve in the other areas of the team, replace Domas with a rebounding defensive big.

This also might not work but I don’t think it’s working with Domas either, not that it’s all his fault because it’s not
 
KayDee55 said:
What? Because every team tries to put together a team that works?
Maybe not the tanking ones, at least for the current seasons, but at no point we were tanking, so....
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So let's be clear here...which of the following do you mean when you say "we already tried?"

  • We tried to bring in the proper/ideal pieces around Sabonis, but we were unsuccessful in acquiring such pieces
  • We tried to build a winner around Sabonis by bringing in the proper/ideal pieces around him, and it still wasn't enough to make us a successful team
 
twslam07 said:
So let's be clear here...which of the following do you mean when you say "we already tried?"

  • We tried to bring in the proper/ideal pieces around Sabonis, but we were unsuccessful in acquiring such pieces
  • We tried to build a winner around Sabonis by bringing in the proper/ideal pieces around him, and it still wasn't enough to make us a successful team
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We got players that the management thought would work together, but the parts that we did get, didnt work out obviously. That is what we have tried.
This is kinda obvious though, as every team in the nba tries to get a team together around their best players.
And yes, i said "best players". He is one of our best players, before you say "hold up" on this, too.
My point is, that we wont go anywhere with him as one of our best players and as one of our highest paid players, hogging a big part of our cap.

As to your other question, I am not aware of players they tried to bring in and weren't successfull in acquiring them, other than the ones that got leaked, as I am not a part of the organisation. This, too, is kinda obvious. I don't know what your point is with this questionnaire.

As for the ideal pieces, again: They are not gettable. They might have tried getting them, but at no point did we have enough assets for any of them. There are maybe 5 players that are an ideal fit for him, and we are not getting any of them. Never.
 
SacTownKid said:
This is almost starting to feel like the Pels are just putting a ton of stuff out there to then get fans on board with them just sticking it out. Moving Zion at this point would be stupid. Might even be them putting pressure on Zion to realize he needs to step it up. Hurting his feelings might light a fire under his butt.
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“We wanted to rebuild but we couldn’t trade our overweight rapist who’s always injured.”
-Joe Dumars probably
 
Tetsujin said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1929965280425586839
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It is starting to feel like the Kings might want to jump the gun on Domas and see what they can get before it's too late. If there is a flurry of moves this summer the Kings could find a lot emptier shelves to restock if they do indeed intend to move him later on. Getting off of Fox quick was a very smart choice, this might be as well.
 
SacTownKid said:
It is starting to feel like the Kings might want to jump the gun on Domas and see what they can get before it's too late. If there is a flurry of moves this summer the Kings could find a lot emptier shelves to restock if they do indeed intend to move him later on. Getting off of Fox quick was a very smart choice, this might be as well.
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Thats what im saying. It would be clever to move him now. He will ask out later anyways, then we wont get as much for him.
 
SacTownKid said:
It is starting to feel like the Kings might want to jump the gun on Domas and see what they can get before it's too late. If there is a flurry of moves this summer the Kings could find a lot emptier shelves to restock if they do indeed intend to move him later on. Getting off of Fox quick was a very smart choice, this might be as well.
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Getting off of Fox quick was a *necessary* move because he forced his way out in the way least conducive to the team getting a fair return.

Unless Domas does the same, or at the very least asks to be traded privately, jumping the gun on Domas would be a bad move. There is no "before it's too late" here, there are three years left on his deal. I guess I'm going to have to keep saying it to counter the handful of people who vocally think otherwise, but trading away the statistically best player in the 40-year history of your city instead of trying to build around him (when by all accounts so far he is happy to be with your team) is completely counterproductive.
 
KayDee55 said:
We got players that the management thought would work together, but the parts that we did get, didnt work out obviously. That is what we have tried.
This is kinda obvious though, as every team in the nba tries to get a team together around their best players.
And yes, i said "best players". He is one of our best players, before you say "hold up" on this, too.
My point is, that we wont go anywhere with him as one of our best players and as one of our highest paid players, hogging a big part of our cap.

As to your other question, I am not aware of players they tried to bring in and weren't successfull in acquiring them, other than the ones that got leaked, as I am not a part of the organisation. This, too, is kinda obvious. I don't know what your point is with this questionnaire.

As for the ideal pieces, again: They are not gettable. They might have tried getting them, but at no point did we have enough assets for any of them. There are maybe 5 players that are an ideal fit for him, and we are not getting any of them. Never.
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I think you misinterpreted my question…I was asking what you meant by “we already tried” and whether it was the first bullet or 2nd bullet. Reading between the lines, I think you meant it as the 1st bullet. Is that correct?
 
Capt. Factorial said:
Getting off of Fox quick was a *necessary* move because he forced his way out in the way least conducive to the team getting a fair return.

Unless Domas does the same, or at the very least asks to be traded privately, jumping the gun on Domas would be a bad move. There is no "before it's too late" here, there are three years left on his deal. I guess I'm going to have to keep saying it to counter the handful of people who vocally think otherwise, but trading away the statistically best player in the 40-year history of your city instead of trying to build around him (when by all accounts so far he is happy to be with your team) is completely counterproductive.
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That's the thing, they disregard his numbers and impact because it doesn't match with their agenda on him now as a player. But stats all of a sudden matter for other guys?

I think LaVine/Domas can be a very high-end offensive duo. You got to find the right defensive pieces around them, but those 2 should be able to lead a quality offense. Championship? eh, probably not but I think good enough to be a playoff team.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
Getting off of Fox quick was a *necessary* move because he forced his way out in the way least conducive to the team getting a fair return.

Unless Domas does the same, or at the very least asks to be traded privately, jumping the gun on Domas would be a bad move. There is no "before it's too late" here, there are three years left on his deal. I guess I'm going to have to keep saying it to counter the handful of people who vocally think otherwise, but trading away the statistically best player in the 40-year history of your city instead of trying to build around him (when by all accounts so far he is happy to be with your team) is completely counterproductive.
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Yeah but there were a lot of people thinking it wise to wait until after the season. Considering how things are looking that would have been quite unwise potentially.

It's amazing how quickly time runs out. There are 1.5 years until he's basically in the same spot Fox was. The question for Domas is then do you build around him and risk your future doing it by making roster decisions based entirely around that? Just like Fox? Looks like those make Fox happy moves are starting to hurt a little bit huh? The more I think about it, if Domas is wanting a say in that and is making calls on moves then the smart plays is don't let the same thing you just had to deal with happen again. No more saddling your franchise to make a non true superstar happy.

If Domas is willing to wait and see maybe you can wait, but not long. The problem is if there is a ton of changeover this summer that costs you time as well by either teams possibly sticking themselves into no flexibility like the Suns did, or just the fact that they'll give themselves a year or two to see what they are first and build before making major moves. Right now there seems to be teams with assets looking to make the jump which is probably the only real value situation out there for a player like Domas right now. Once they make that jump the market shrinks for a period of time and no, 3 years isn't long at all. The Kings will probably spend a good portion of that time waiting for the waters to get a little deeper so they can go fishing again.
 
The_Jamal said:
That's the thing, they disregard his numbers and impact because it doesn't match with their agenda on him now as a player. But stats all of a sudden matter for other guys?

I think LaVine/Domas can be a very high-end offensive duo. You got to find the right defensive pieces around them, but those 2 should be able to lead a quality offense. Championship? eh, probably not but I think good enough to be a playoff team.
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It's all risk vs. reward. The more I think about it, depending on how Domas approaches this the Kings could indeed be ending up in the same mess they were with Fox in another year and a half. Fox wanted calls on roster construction and it sounds like Domas is kind of starting up the same thing. We'll see how far that goes I guess. At the very least Perry needs to be paying attention to what his counterparts are doing because there could be a lot of assets flying around that he might want to get in on, especially if a team is left out in the cold on their big move A.
 
SacTownKid said:
It's amazing how quickly time runs out. There are 1.5 years until he's basically in the same spot Fox was.
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Well, that's 1.5 years, and even then the situation is only that bad if Domas announces that he'll sign with one team and one team only in free agency, making it almost impossible for any other team to bid on him.

That 1.5 years gives an offseason, a trade deadline, another offseason, and then another half a year of play before the clock really starts ticking. That's a lot of opportunities to get the right mix of players built.

The question for Domas is then do you build around him and risk your future doing it by making roster decisions based entirely around that? Just like Fox? Looks like those make Fox happy moves are starting to hurt a little bit huh?
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Yes, you build around him. I don't see this as a "risk" of our future at all, because the alternative is basically a complete tear-down and rebuild - if you want to talk about "risky futures" that's where I'd say the real risk lies. A better player is quite unlikely to fall into our laps in any trade situation. That means we'd have to hope we got lucky in the draft (which is getting harder to do as the lotto odds are flattened out) to find a replacement.

You can always point to the ways things might fail. But I'd rather risk failure when success is tangible than preemptively accept failure and hope we can find success somewhere down the line.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
Well, that's 1.5 years, and even then the situation is only that bad if Domas announces that he'll sign with one team and one team only in free agency, making it almost impossible for any other team to bid on him.

That 1.5 years gives an offseason, a trade deadline, another offseason, and then another half a year of play before the clock really starts ticking. That's a lot of opportunities to get the right mix of players built.


Yes, you build around him. I don't see this as a "risk" of our future at all, because the alternative is basically a complete tear-down and rebuild - if you want to talk about "risky futures" that's where I'd say the real risk lies. A better player is quite unlikely to fall into our laps in any trade situation. That means we'd have to hope we got lucky in the draft (which is getting harder to do as the lotto odds are flattened out) to find a replacement.

You can always point to the ways things might fail. But I'd rather risk failure when success is tangible than preemptively accept failure and hope we can find success somewhere down the line.
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Still though you would probably be better off assuming value will be lower the more that contract dwindles down. We don't know if what we're hearing is true but we are starting to see some more talk about Domas not being some ideal target for most teams.

This still all relates to the potential of this franchise in a best case. This isn't as if we've seen Domas for brief stint. He's been here for a few years now and that's clearly enough time to assess things if he does start making demands for "clarity" and comments on construction as he already has. Sorry, this is on the surface starting to look eerily similar to how the Fox thing started and we know this is a franchise doomed to repeat if they have their way, haha. If that's the case the high end of potential certainly doesn't outweigh those potential negatives. The Kings need to be most concerned about heading the worst off at the pass rather than making a Domas level player happy IMO if it comes to that.
 
Just looking at the Bulls roster, they have 5 guys who are primarily PG’s.
I’d be interested in Holiday, old or not, but if not wouldn’t mind another Bull.

Domas, I prefer that we can build a good team with him, isn’t he supposed to meet with the brass sometime soon to discuss the direction of the team? He may want to move on but doubt he will be as classless as Fox and say he’d only resign with one team.
 
KayDee55 said:
We got players that the management thought would work together, but the parts that we did get, didnt work out obviously. That is what we have tried.
This is kinda obvious though, as every team in the nba tries to get a team together around their best players.
And yes, i said "best players". He is one of our best players, before you say "hold up" on this, too.
My point is, that we wont go anywhere with him as one of our best players and as one of our highest paid players, hogging a big part of our cap.

As to your other question, I am not aware of players they tried to bring in and weren't successfull in acquiring them, other than the ones that got leaked, as I am not a part of the organisation. This, too, is kinda obvious. I don't know what your point is with this questionnaire.

As for the ideal pieces, again: They are not gettable. They might have tried getting them, but at no point did we have enough assets for any of them. There are maybe 5 players that are an ideal fit for him, and we are not getting any of them. Never.
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twslam07 said:
I think you misinterpreted my question…I was asking what you meant by “we already tried” and whether it was the first bullet or 2nd bullet. Reading between the lines, I think you meant it as the 1st bullet. Is that correct?
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I'm going to assume when you said "we already tried" you meant "we tried to bring in the proper/ideal pieces around Sabonis, but we were unsuccessful in acquiring such pieces."

My response to that would be...so you're in agreement that we never put a proper roster around Sabonis? Why does the default response to that reality mean we should move on & give up on actually trying to put the proper roster around him?

Look, he's not the easiest person to build around, and I've been on the record that he likely has to be your 3rd best player on a contender and 2nd best player on a playoff team. However, just because someone is more difficult to build around, it doesn't mean you can't overcome that difficulty and be successful with that player on your roster.

So the question becomes what does an ideal roster look like around Sabonis. I'd say it's the following...

  • PG: A good defender, a good shooter, someone who can help run the offense, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • SG: A good defender, a good shooter, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • SF: A good defender, a good shooter, someone that can help protect the rim a bit, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • PF: A good defender, a good shooter, someone that can help protect the rim a bit, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • C: Sabonis
On top of that, two of those players (PG-PF) need to be good enough go-to scorers that allow Sabonis to play the 3rd option/facilitator role.

Looking at our current roster, we have 3 players that fit my descriptions above (or could fit my descriptions above)...
  • Keegan Murray checks all of those boxes at SF (not so much at PF as I'd want someone with some more size & length their ideally)
  • Keon Ellis checks all of those boxes at SG
  • Devin Carter could check all of those boxes at SG if he can hit the 3 ball at a high enough clip (like what he did in his last year in college), he could check all of those boxes at PG if he can prove that he can run an offense (I'm less optimistic about this happening but it's possible), and he could check all of those boxes if he develops his offensive game enough to be good enough to be a 1st or 2nd go-to option (I think this is pretty unlikely but he does have excellent physical attributes and length for his position which could give him advantages when beating his defender. But again, physical attributes is just one piece. He'd need to develop his offensive game pretty significantly. It's not impossible but I wouldn't consider it likely)

Now I have to be clear, that is an "ideal" roster. If we have an average or below average defender thrown in there, I don't think we're all of a sudden capped as a play-in team or something, but that's generally the mold you'd be looking to form around Sabonis.



As for Sabonis' contract and what it allows/prevents us from doing, we would have the ability to have 2 max contracts on this roster with Sabonis and still be considerably under the 2nd apron. Let's go through the math...

For the sake of the calculation, let's assume we resign Ellis to a contract similar to Herb Jones' contract this offseason and let's assume we resign Murray to a contract similar to Trey Murphy's contract next offseason...
  • During the 2026-27 season, we'd have $89.9 mil tied up in Sabonis, Murray, Ellis, & Carter. That leaves us $138.7 mil of space before hitting the 2nd apron. Adding two 30% max contracts would be an additional $102.1 mil leaving us another $36.6 mil to fill out the remaining roster.
  • During the 2027-28 season, we'd have $98.2 mil tied up in Sabonis, Murray, Ellis, & Carter. That leaves us $153.3 mil of space before hitting the 2nd apron. Adding two 30% max contracts would be an additional $112.3 mil leaving us another $41.0 mil to fill out the remaining roster

Now I'm not saying "let's go immediately trade for two additional max contracts," but I did want to demonstrate that Sabonis' contract doesn't necessarily prevent us from adding two star talents next to him while still having Murray, Ellis, Carter, and an additional $36.6-$41.0 mil to fill out the roster. This is why it's important to have staggered expiring contracts that we can leverage in a trade for a star (LaVine is an expiring next offseason, Holiday would be an expiring the following offseason).

If we fail at making a "star" trade and fail at surrounding Sabonis with the other archetypes I mentioned above, I think Vivek will have no other choice than to accept a rebuild, but I have a very had time seeing him signoff on a rebuild until that happens (or if Sabonis asks out in lead up).
 
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twslam07 said:
I'm going to assume when you said "we already tried" you meant "we tried to bring in the proper/ideal pieces around Sabonis, but we were unsuccessful in acquiring such pieces."

My response to that would be...so you're in agreement that we never put a proper roster around Sabonis? Why does the default response to that reality mean we should move on & give up on actually trying to put the proper roster around him?

Look, he's not the easiest person to build around, and I've been on the record that he likely has to be your 3rd best player on a contender and 2nd best player on a playoff team. However, just because someone is more difficult to build around, it doesn't mean you can't overcome that difficulty and be successful with that player on your roster.

So the question becomes what does an ideal roster look like around Sabonis. I'd say it's the following...

  • PG: A good defender, a good shooter, someone who can help run the offense, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • SG: A good defender, a good shooter, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • SF: A good defender, a good shooter, someone that can help protect the rim a bit, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • PF: A good defender, a good shooter, someone that can help protect the rim a bit, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • C: Sabonis
On top of that, two of those players (PG-PF) need to be good enough go-to scorers that allow Sabonis to play the 3rd option/facilitator role.

Looking at our current roster, we have 3 players that fit my descriptions above (or could fit my descriptions above)...
  • Keegan Murray checks all of those boxes at SF (not so much at PF as I'd want someone with some more size & length their ideally)
  • Keon Ellis checks all of those boxes at SG
  • Devin Carter could check all of those boxes at SG if he can hit the 3 ball at a high enough clip (like what he did in his last year in college), he could check all of those boxes at PG if he can prove that he can run an offense (I'm less optimistic about this happening but it's possible), and he could check all of those boxes if he develops his offensive game enough to be good enough to be a 1st or 2nd go-to option (I think this is pretty unlikely but he does have excellent physical attributes and length for his position which could give him advantages when beating his defender. But again, physical attributes is just one piece. He'd need to develop his offensive game pretty significantly. It's not impossible but I wouldn't consider it likely)

Now I have to be clear, that is an "ideal" roster. If we have an average or below average defender thrown in there, I don't think we're all of a sudden capped as a play-in team or something, but that's generally the mold you'd be looking to form around Sabonis.



As for Sabonis' contract and what it allows/prevents us from doing, we would have the ability to have 2 max contracts on this roster with Sabonis and still be considerably under the 2nd apron. Let's go through the math...

For the sake of the calculation, let's assume we resign Ellis to a contract similar to Herb Jones' contract this offseason and let's assume we resign Murray to a contract similar to Trey Murphy's contract next offseason...
  • During the 2026-27 season, we'd have $89.9 mil tied up in Sabonis, Murray, Ellis, & Carter. That leaves us $138.7 mil of space before hitting the 2nd apron. Adding two 30% max contracts would be an additional $102.1 mil leaving us another $36.6 mil to fill out the remaining roster.
  • During the 2027-28 season, we'd have $98.2 mil tied up in Sabonis, Murray, Ellis, & Carter. That leaves us $153.3 mil of space before hitting the 2nd apron. Adding two 30% max contracts would be an additional $112.3 mil leaving us another $41.0 mil to fill out the remaining roster

Now I'm not saying "let's go immediately trade for two additional max contracts," but I did want to demonstrate that Sabonis' contract doesn't necessarily prevent us from adding two star talents next to him while still having Murray, Ellis, Carter, and an additional $36.6-$41.0 mil to fill out the roster. This is why it's important to have staggered expiring contracts that we can leverage in a trade for a star (LaVine is an expiring next offseason, Holiday would be an expiring the following offseason).

If we fail at making a "star" trade and fail at surrounding Sabonis with the other archetypes I mentioned above, I think Vivek will have no other choice than to accept a rebuild, but I have a very had time seeing him signoff on a rebuild until that happens (or if Sabonis asks out in lead up).
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You can use Houston as a blueprint with Sengun and Domas similarities. Keegan probably equals Jabari Smith or Brooks if you choose. I think we could find a Brooks type player. What we can’t find is an Amen type player. Huge piece to Houston.
 
dude12 said:
You can use Houston as a blueprint with Sengun and Domas similarities. Keegan probably equals Jabari Smith or Brooks if you choose. I think we could find a Brooks type player. What we can’t find is an Amen type player. Huge piece to Houston.
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Keon Ellis is a pretty darn impactful defender though, and I think Devin Carter will be as well. Now would I bet on either of those guys being as impactful defensively as Amen? No, but I'm also not going to pretend like there is some sort of massive chasm between them either.

You also need to keep in mind what Houston was able to do defensively not only despite Sengun starting at C but also despite Jalen Green starting at SG. If we don't have another glaring weak link on defense outside of Sabonis there's less of a need to have a 1st team all defensive talent to help make up for those deficiencies.
 
twslam07 said:
I'm going to assume when you said "we already tried" you meant "we tried to bring in the proper/ideal pieces around Sabonis, but we were unsuccessful in acquiring such pieces."

My response to that would be...so you're in agreement that we never put a proper roster around Sabonis? Why does the default response to that reality mean we should move on & give up on actually trying to put the proper roster around him?

Look, he's not the easiest person to build around, and I've been on the record that he likely has to be your 3rd best player on a contender and 2nd best player on a playoff team. However, just because someone is more difficult to build around, it doesn't mean you can't overcome that difficulty and be successful with that player on your roster.

So the question becomes what does an ideal roster look like around Sabonis. I'd say it's the following...

  • PG: A good defender, a good shooter, someone who can help run the offense, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • SG: A good defender, a good shooter, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • SF: A good defender, a good shooter, someone that can help protect the rim a bit, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • PF: A good defender, a good shooter, someone that can help protect the rim a bit, and someone that has good size, length, & athleticism for their position.
  • C: Sabonis
On top of that, two of those players (PG-PF) need to be good enough go-to scorers that allow Sabonis to play the 3rd option/facilitator role.

Looking at our current roster, we have 3 players that fit my descriptions above (or could fit my descriptions above)...
  • Keegan Murray checks all of those boxes at SF (not so much at PF as I'd want someone with some more size & length their ideally)
  • Keon Ellis checks all of those boxes at SG
  • Devin Carter could check all of those boxes at SG if he can hit the 3 ball at a high enough clip (like what he did in his last year in college), he could check all of those boxes at PG if he can prove that he can run an offense (I'm less optimistic about this happening but it's possible), and he could check all of those boxes if he develops his offensive game enough to be good enough to be a 1st or 2nd go-to option (I think this is pretty unlikely but he does have excellent physical attributes and length for his position which could give him advantages when beating his defender. But again, physical attributes is just one piece. He'd need to develop his offensive game pretty significantly. It's not impossible but I wouldn't consider it likely)

Now I have to be clear, that is an "ideal" roster. If we have an average or below average defender thrown in there, I don't think we're all of a sudden capped as a play-in team or something, but that's generally the mold you'd be looking to form around Sabonis.



As for Sabonis' contract and what it allows/prevents us from doing, we would have the ability to have 2 max contracts on this roster with Sabonis and still be considerably under the 2nd apron. Let's go through the math...

For the sake of the calculation, let's assume we resign Ellis to a contract similar to Herb Jones' contract this offseason and let's assume we resign Murray to a contract similar to Trey Murphy's contract next offseason...
  • During the 2026-27 season, we'd have $89.9 mil tied up in Sabonis, Murray, Ellis, & Carter. That leaves us $138.7 mil of space before hitting the 2nd apron. Adding two 30% max contracts would be an additional $102.1 mil leaving us another $36.6 mil to fill out the remaining roster.
  • During the 2027-28 season, we'd have $98.2 mil tied up in Sabonis, Murray, Ellis, & Carter. That leaves us $153.3 mil of space before hitting the 2nd apron. Adding two 30% max contracts would be an additional $112.3 mil leaving us another $41.0 mil to fill out the remaining roster

Now I'm not saying "let's go immediately trade for two additional max contracts," but I did want to demonstrate that Sabonis' contract doesn't necessarily prevent us from adding two star talents next to him while still having Murray, Ellis, Carter, and an additional $36.6-$41.0 mil to fill out the roster. This is why it's important to have staggered expiring contracts that we can leverage in a trade for a star (LaVine is an expiring next offseason, Holiday would be an expiring the following offseason).

If we fail at making a "star" trade and fail at surrounding Sabonis with the other archetypes I mentioned above, I think Vivek will have no other choice than to accept a rebuild, but I have a very had time seeing him signoff on a rebuild until that happens (or if Sabonis asks out in lead up).
Click to expand...
I guess the only point we disagree on is, how much rim protection we need to be able to make Domas work.
You are writing "helping protecting the rim A BIT". A bit is not going to cut it.
After all i have seen from Domas, and having LaVine to share to court with him, we need proper rim protection.
A guy that can keep their backs clean, at all times. On the other hand, he already played with Myles Turner, who kind of is the perfect player next to him, as he can protect the rim, is agile and can spread the floor. It didnt work out though.

Who is that:
Tier 1:
Chet
Wemby
Mobley
Myles Turner (in theory, in reality, it already failed)
Embiid

Tier 2:
JJJ
Porzingis
Gobert

Tier 3:
Hartenstein
Pöltl
Kessler
etc.

I dont think any of these are gettable with the assets we have.
Maybe Pöltl or Kessler.

But then, again, Sabonis already had Myles Turner, who is the perfect player to complement his skillset and a two way star in Oladipo, and that team did not work out, as we know.


To the Houston defense:
It worked when they used their "magic zone" and only because of Sengun showing good defensive playmaking and running his ass off.
I have never seen Sabonis running out to the 3 point line, back into the zone, closing down passing lanes, etc.
The other times it worked for Houston was when Adams shared the floor with Sengun.
 
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