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2025 Off-Season Trade Ideas Thread

"So should the league handpick where each player is to go?"

They already do. That's why there's a lottery system. It's also why they changed that system to make it less statistically obvious when the higher priority franchises get "lucky"
 
karl malone said:
They already do. That's why there's a lottery system. It's also why they changed that system to make it less statistically obvious when the higher priority franchises get "lucky"
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The Mavs have basically no upcoming draft picks and have tons of money committed to old and aging stars and have a terrible coach, GM, and owner. The NBA has doomed the first great white American player to enter the league in several decades to spending his first 8 years on a bad team. They also have set up the Spurs (a team with a small fanbase) to win several championships. This was the worst rigging imaginable from the NBA's perspective. A good rigging probably sends Flagg to the Wizards to establish Washington DC as a big basketball city and the Wizards have interesting young players and assets to build around Flagg with.

Did the NBA rig the 2022 draft as well by having 2 of the 5 smallest franchises in the NBA (Orlando and OKC) the top two picks in a two player draft too.
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
The Mavs have basically no upcoming draft picks and have tons of money committed to old and aging stars and have a terrible coach, GM, and owner. The NBA has doomed the first great white American player to enter the league in several decades to spending his first 8 years on a bad team. They also have set up the Spurs (a team with a small fanbase) to win several championships. This was the worst rigging imaginable from the NBA's perspective. A good rigging probably sends Flagg to the Wizards to establish Washington DC as a big basketball city and the Wizards have interesting young players and assets to build around Flagg with.

Did the NBA rig the 2022 draft as well by having 2 of the 5 smallest franchises in the NBA (Orlando and OKC) the top two picks in a two player draft too.
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Texas is a huge market & has experienced a major growth in recent years due to the exodus from California. DAL & SA both have history & well established fan bases while WAS doesn't.

Dallas already has a history of embracing foreign white players. Now they get an American white player to embrace as a reward for keeping LA relevant. Why would the league want to damage a Dallas market that just went to the finals? Also, AD & Kyrie (when healthy) isn't a bad supporting cast in the short term. I wouldn't be surprised if they struggle for a year/AD gets injured & end up with another high pick to help them build for the future. It would also be somewhat fitting for him to flounder for the first half of his career in Dallas & then win a title or 2 towards the end similar to Dirk. Lebron also took a similar path with CLE.

As for the Spurs, they already have a history of winning titles with dominant big men so it made perfect sense to send the next generational big to San Antonio. It also made perfect sense to hand them yet another high level asset in order to assist them in furthering that history. I expect it to be traded for an established star but either way, the Spurs are even better set up for the future. Which is clearly in the NBA's best interest as Wemby is obviously the future face of the league.

LA, BOS, NYK, CHI, etc will always be somewhat relevant (at least financially/ratings/attendance wise) due to their location & history so it makes sense to place superstars in other big but less established markets in order to further the reach of the league. Just look at CLE for example. I believe they were 7th in home attendance this year. Before Lebron, they were a completely irrelevant franchise.

It also made sense to make the collateral move of Luka to Flagg for Dallas & the NBA as it now puts the next white superstar in the biggest established market that will most embrace him while putting the biggest current international superstar on the league's most internationally known team.

When billions of dollars are on the line, whoever stands to benefit or loss the most will always do everything they can to get the result that is in their best interest. Why would the NBA be any different? Especially when there's no real regulatory system to stop them?
 
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Kyrie is toast, he's a small 33 year old guard coming off an ACL. "If healthy" is this a joke. Flagg is an absolutely terrible situation, the worst any #1 pick has entered in a long time.

The NBA also rigging Luka to the Lakers but then not rigging a center to the Lakers so the Lakers had no chance of competing just is stupid too. Did they go to the Jazz and ask the Jazz to send Walker Kessler to the Lakers and they would rig the #2 pick for the Jazz? If so, why didn't the Jazz take that deal? The Lakers begged the Jazz for months to trade Kessler and probably offered two firsts and Knecht for Kessler and the Jazz said no, forcing the Lakers to turn to Mr. Glass in Charlotte, who turned out to have glass bones and paper skin.
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
Kyrie is toast, he's a small 33 year old guard coming off an ACL. "If healthy" is this a joke. Flagg is an absolutely terrible situation, the worst any #1 pick has entered in a long time.

The NBA also rigging Luka to the Lakers but then not rigging a center to the Lakers so the Lakers had no chance of competing just is stupid too. Did they go to the Jazz and ask the Jazz to send Walker Kessler to the Lakers and they would rig the #2 pick for the Jazz? If so, why didn't the Jazz take that deal? The Lakers begged the Jazz for months to trade Kessler and probably offered two firsts and Knecht for Kessler and the Jazz said no, forcing the Lakers to turn to Mr. Glass in Charlotte, who turned out to have glass bones and paper skin.
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The NBA isn't worried about a single year. All it cares about is the long-term financial health of the league & I don't see how you can't say that it isn't clearly better off than it was before these recent moves.

The NBA finals is going to draw ratings regardless of who is playing. How many more Luka jerseys do you think are being worn internationally now that the Lakers emblem is on it?

And how many Flagg jerseys do you think are going to be worn along with some cowboy boots? I bet it'll be a lot more than the number of Luka jerseys that were being worn in Texas.
 
karl malone said:
The NBA isn't worried about a single year. All it cares about is the long-term financial health of the league & I don't see how you can't say that it isn't clearly better off than it was before these recent moves.

The NBA finals is going to draw ratings regardless of who is playing. How many more Luka jerseys do you think are being worn internationally now that the Lakers emblem is on it?

And how many Flagg jerseys do you think are going to be worn along with some cowboy boots? I bet it'll be a lot more than the number of Luka jerseys that we're being worn in Texas.
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Holy ****, you ****ing crumbled at literally the first push back and then started doing desperate pleading.

If you know your argument is this stupid that it doesn't survive the first contact with reality, why not just give up on it.
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
Holy ****, you ****ing crumbled at literally the first push back and then started doing desperate pleading.

If you know your argument is this stupid that it doesn't survive the first contact with reality, why not just give up on it.
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Huh? Where did I crumble & start pleading?

I just stated that I believe these moves were about the long-term financial health of the league rather than the Lakers winning a title this year. I'll give you that I probably should have said if instead of when in regards to Kyrie's health.

But outside of that, I stand by what I said.

And if anything, I'd say that last response was you crumbling & trying to get out of a debate rather than providing an actual response with facts or reason.

All good tho. I'm happy to continue this debate.
 
karl malone said:
Huh? Where did I crumble & start pleading?

I just stated that I believe these moves were about the long-term financial health of the league rather than the Lakers winning a title this year. I'll give you that I probably should have said if instead of when in regards to Kyrie's health.

But outside of that, I stand by what I said.

And if anything, I'd say that last response was you crumbling & trying to get out of a debate rather than providing an actual response with facts or reason.

All good tho. I'm happy to continue this debate.
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No, you just immediately started babbling and talking about how well, the NBA doesn't need to rig it for the Lakers this year, they're just interested in the long-term popularity of the league... Which won't be helped by the Lakers winning this year but will be helped by the Lakers losing badly in the first-round this year?

And babbling about Flagg jersey sales in Dallas. My god, you just had literally no counter argument to "why didn't they give the Lakers a center" and you just immediately started pivoting to nonsense.
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
No, you just immediately started babbling and talking about how well, the NBA doesn't need to rig it for the Lakers this year, they're just interested in the long-term popularity of the league... Which won't be helped by the Lakers winning this year but will be helped by the Lakers losing badly in the first-round this year?

And babbling about Flagg jersey sales in Dallas. My god, you just had literally no counter argument to "why didn't they give the Lakers a center" and you just immediately started pivoting to nonsense.
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I disagree with that assessment of my response. I'll try to be more clear.

What will help the Lakers (& the league in return) is having a young international superstar on their roster for the next 10+ years. Losing in the first round doesn't lessen that long-term impact.

My counter argument as to why they didn't give the Lakers a center is because the outcome of their season this year wasn't a priority for the long-term future of the league. Getting them a long-term international star that they can market globally was.

As for Flagg jersey sales in Texas, not just Dallas, I don't see how you can say that Flagg isn't significantly more marketable than Luka when you consider the state we're talking about.
 
If Silver is rigging the lottery, he's doing it in the worst way possible because 1) timing. That Luka trade is so infamous that it caught the attention of outside non-basketball/non-sports world. The audacity to rig the lottery in Dallas favor at this very moment would damage the leagues reputation even more. 2) outcome. Both DAL and SAS are likely the worst outcome for Flagg and Harper for reasons explained before.

It's too much to lose and not enough to gain for Silver to rig this draft(even if they wanted to compensate Nico for handing Luka over to LA, it would've been so much better to wait till next year). Doesn't make any sense from a financial stand point. He's made a lot of positive changes since becoming the commissioner in 2014. Unfortunately changing the lottery odds isn't one if them.
 
jom2003 said:
If Silver is rigging the lottery, he's doing it in the worst way possible because 1) timing. That Luka trade is so infamous that it caught the attention of outside non-basketball/non-sports world. The audacity to rig the lottery in Dallas favor at this very moment would damage the leagues reputation even more. 2) outcome. Both DAL and SAS are likely the worst outcome for Flagg and Harper for reasons explained before.

It's too much to lose and not enough to gain for Silver to rig this draft(even if they wanted to compensate Nico for handing Luka over to LA, it would've been so much better to wait till next year). Doesn't make any sense from a financial stand point. He's made a lot of positive changes since becoming the commissioner in 2014. Unfortunately changing the lottery odds isn't one if them.
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I agree that it was extremely audacious but I disagree that it would damage the league's reputation because it hasn't as far as I can tell. I also don't believe the league is nearly as interested in it's reputation as it is it's bottom line/international marketability.

I also disagree that DAL & SAS were bad landing spots for those picks. Dallas was an ideal spot for Flagg because he is immediately the face of an established franchise with a fan base that is very likely to fully embrace him. They're also an AD injury away from ending up with another high draft pick in another very good draft class next year to pair with him.

As far as San Antonio landing the #2 pick goes, that result is more about Wemby & the team having an asset to headline a trade for an established star than it is Harper imo. He'll probably still end up in a good enough developmental situation. But even if he doesn't, who's future do you think impacts the NBA's bottom line more? Wemby's or Harper's?

I also disagree that Silver didn't have more to gain than he had to lose. He gained massively by putting the biggest international star on the most globally known team, simultaneously not destroying a recent NBA finals team by replacing him with a potential superstar better fit for that specific market. And what did he have to lose? The NBA's reputation is as bad as it's ever been yet people continue to watch & debate on message boards lol.

Not sure why it doesn't make sense financially. I don't follow that aspect of the game closely but would love to hear why.

I guess it's all perspective. I respect everyone's right to believe what they want but logically I just believe it's much more likely that this was pre-planned rather than a franchise coming off of a finals trip randomly gifting a young international superstar to the league's premier team for far below market value & then winning the lottery on 1.8% odds. Especially when the overall outcome is clearly in the best interest of the league.

Appreciate the reasonable response.
 
I'll stop on this subject tho if people prefer. Not trying to derail the trade talk like I think I've done to other threads. My bad for that. Just couldn't not say something when it seems so blatantly obvious. But then again I do stay pretty high.

Nothing but love. Go Jazz.
 
karl malone said:
I'll stop on this subject tho if people prefer. Not trying to derail the trade talk like I think I've done to other threads. My bad for that. Just couldn't not say something when it seems so blatantly obvious. But then again I do stay pretty high.

Nothing but love. Go Jazz.
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Lol. good post
 
karl malone said:
"So should the league handpick where each player is to go?"

They already do. That's why there's a lottery system. It's also why they changed that system to make it less statistically obvious when the higher priority franchises get "lucky"
Click to expand...
Beat me to it.
 
I would need more to take on PG's contract. If we can swing him to MIL for Dame maybe get a little bit more from PHI I think I'd say yes. We'd be doing PHI a huge favor and opening up a max cap space window for them.

Think it's not unrealistic though. I could see Morey having his sights set on Kon at #5 or being content with the remainder of Ace/VJ/Tre.
 
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