2025-26 NBA | Page 17 | Syracusefan.com

2025-26 NBA

MikeSU02 said:
The things i'm looking for:
** Where Giannis may go
** Will Dallas trade AD or look to extend him or what?
** Personally, what's the deal with Yabusele for the Knicks
** In general, what the Clippers may do because it seems like every month a new story breaks that is awful for them.

Finally, nothing to really see, but the Thunder's future is ridiculous with the aggregation of picks and swaps they have with how well they've done with their existing roster.
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I was a little disappointed by the article, personally. It was more stats and cap space discussion, than "they should get a backup PG", etc.

Getting Giannis is like what the Knicks did to get Melo - gut their roster, instead of waiting for him to become a free agent, because he wanted the max extension from Denver and then a sign & trade.

Whoever get Giannis loses. Whoever takes Anthony Davis loses. Whoever thinks about signing Lebron when his Lakers contract expires this summer loses.

These guys all make way too much money compared to their availability, and compared to the cost of replacement value equivalent players. With all 3 of those guys, you're paying for past performance, and none of them are good enough to guarantee you a championship.
 
nice bs foul call on Amen Thompson gifting Denver. how u supposed to prevent someone from kicking your shin when they try to run? completely natural motion and their legs got tangled. give me a break
 
IthacaMatt said:
I was a little disappointed by the article, personally. It was more stats and cap space discussion, than "they should get a backup PG", etc.

Getting Giannis is like what the Knicks did to get Melo - gut their roster, instead of waiting for him to become a free agent, because he wanted the max extension from Denver and then a sign & trade.

Whoever get Giannis loses. Whoever takes Anthony Davis loses. Whoever thinks about signing Lebron when his Lakers contract expires this summer loses.

These guys all make way too much money compared to their availability, and compared to the cost of replacement value equivalent players. With all 3 of those guys, you're paying for past performance, and none of them are good enough to guarantee you a championship.
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I don’t think giannis should be discussed in the same class as LeBron or AD. Giannis is absolutely one of the 3 or 4 best players in the league right now.
 
Knicks411 said:
I don’t think giannis should be discussed in the same class as LeBron or AD. Giannis is absolutely one of the 3 or 4 best players in the league right now.
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Yes, but he's a big who can't make the outside shot. Plus he misses games pretty much every season with lower body injuries. He's only played 70 games once in the last 6 years. Two years from now, Giannis will be like Joel Embiid.
 
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IthacaMatt said:
Yes, but he's a big who can't make the outside shot. Plus he misses games pretty much every season with lower body injuries. He's only played 70 games once in the last 6 years. Two years from now, Giannis will be like Joel Embiid.
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Unfortunately that's just kind of how the NBA is these days. Of the top 20 scorers last season, 9 played at least 70 games (and 4 of those 9 were exactly 70). Year before it was 14. Year before that it was 4 (and astoundingly, 1 of the top 13 scorers lol). Giannis isn't hitting 70 anymore, but in today's NBA, I think you could reasonably argue that he's literally never missed significant time and it's frankly remarkable how little time he's missed given how physically he plays every game.

I don't know who an NBA team is supposed to give a max contract to if you don't think Giannis is one of those guys.
 
IthacaMatt said:
Yes, but he's a big who can't make the outside shot. Plus he misses games pretty much every season with lower body injuries. He's only played 70 games once in the last 6 years. Two years from now, Giannis will be like Joel Embiid.
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Yeah I mean giannis isn’t a perfect player but he is pretty damn incredible.

70 games is somewhat of a random number to pick (also 2 of the seasons you included in the that six years were shortened due to Covid; he was pacing right at 70 those 2 years); he’s almost always well over 60 and it’s just a fact of the matter that guys are going to miss time. Granted he’s over 30 now, I would be a tad worried that he’s got muscle type injuries every year.

I think there are certainly fit related reasons to worry a little about adding giannis (mostly stemming from the fact that he best operates as a 5 on offense but his defense isn’t what it once was) but the guy is still incredible and is much better than either ad or LeBron at this point.
 
Knicks411 said:
Yeah I mean giannis isn’t a perfect player but he is pretty damn incredible.

70 games is somewhat of a random number to pick (also 2 of the seasons you included in the that six years were shortened due to Covid; he was pacing right at 70 those 2 years); he’s almost always well over 60 and it’s just a fact of the matter that guys are going to miss time. Granted he’s over 30 now, I would be a tad worried that he’s got muscle type injuries every year.

I think there are certainly fit related reasons to worry a little about adding giannis (mostly stemming from the fact that he best operates as a 5 on offense but his defense isn’t what it once was) but the guy is still incredible and is much better than either ad or LeBron at this point.
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I think pretty much everyone should be interested in acquiring him, especially if you believe the media that nobody is really offering anything of value for him in these trade talks lol. Having said that, I'd add as other potential issues to consider (and maybe to a degree it's actually a good thing): Giannis' defensive effort this season has been nowhere near his norm and at times has been embarrassingly bad. Entirely possible that he's just exhausting himself on offense and doesn't have the energy to play consistent defense given the level of creation Milwaukee is asking him to do, but also possible he's just sort of entering that phase of his career where he's starting to coast more on defense to save his body. He's also basically indicated that the creation burden he's taken on this season is his preference; Milwaukee won the title by getting him to buy in to playing more as a screener/play finisher rather than the initial creator and I think for some teams that could potentially be interested in him, that's probably how they'd want to play him. But maybe he's just not interested in that anymore, who knows really.

On the flipside, I feel like people like to make a couple arguments against him all the time: (1) that he's hard to build a team around because you need every other player on the team to be a shooter and (2) that he won't age well because his game is reliant on freakish athleticism. I tend to disagree with both of those arguments. Sure, it's probably best if everyone around him can shoot, but that's basically how everyone tries to build their teams these days anyways. We won the title with Jrue being basically incapable of making a jumpshot the entire postseason and PJ Tucker just standing in a corner doing nothing/attracting zero defensive attention all game. As long as you have SOME shooting, Giannis will make it work because he basically forces you to have at least 1 or 2 help defenders collapsing on his drives or it'll generally be an easy 2 points for him. And to the latter, I just don't think that's an accurate depiction of his game. It's not like he's prime Blake Griffin where he was just jumping 40 inches off the ground and dunking everything. Giannis mostly gets to the rim because he has good footwork, good strength, and barely has to jump to dunk the ball; none of those things are likely to disappear anytime soon. I also tend to think it works in the opposite way too. The better athletes age better because they can lose some athleticism and still be a good athlete, whereas the guys that are skilled enough to overcome being a poor athlete lose some athleticism and become unplayable because they just can't keep up on defense anymore. If Giannis begins to suffer multiple catastrophic injuries that suddenly make him a legitimately poor athlete, then yeah, he's probably toast, but that goes for basically all NBA players and *knock on wood*, he hasn't had any of those injuries yet.
 
My biggest concern re: Giannis would be the defensive issue. It does seem like he’s taken at least a step back defensively (which makes sense for a number of reasons) but if the Knicks acquired him (to pick a team at random!) I dunno. The hawks would make a lot of senga cause you could play KP or okongwu (assuming they’re not in the trade or not sick etc). But I also dony want to overstate the concerns because I watched him play the Knicks in his first game back from injury and he was unstoppable.

I think the point about giannis wanting the ball and to be the creative force is a good one and would also give me a little pause.
 
Knicks411 said:
My biggest concern re: Giannis would be the defensive issue. It does seem like he’s taken at least a step back defensively (which makes sense for a number of reasons) but if the Knicks acquired him (to pick a team at random!) I dunno. The hawks would make a lot of senga cause you could play KP or okongwu (assuming they’re not in the trade or not sick etc). But I also dony want to overstate the concerns because I watched him play the Knicks in his first game back from injury and he was unstoppable.

I think the point about giannis wanting the ball and to be the creative force is a good one and would also give me a little pause.
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I think the Hawks are one of the teams that should absolutely consider making a trade for him and can actually make an interesting offer for him. Assuming they keep Trae in such a trade, I think Porzingis would need to be included (and even if Trae IS in the trade, I think you could make a case for a Porzingis-Turner swap to be in there too that benefits both parties if it means Milwaukee getting one more asset out of them).

My ranking of the teams that I could at least kinda see pursuing a Giannis trade (ignoring reports to the contrary for now because who knows what is and what isn't just posturing) would probably look something like:
  1. Atlanta - Would want both Jalen Johnson and the other half of our pick swap with New Orleans. If forced to settle for just one of those, honestly not sure where I'd land.
  2. OKC - Would prioritize Jalen Williams over Chet but am fine with either of them being a centerpiece. Feels extremely unlikely though.
  3. San Antonio - Would want both Harper and Castle. Would prioritize Harper if only getting one of them. If the reports are true that neither are on the table, then they simply are not a trade partner.
  4. Houston - Not sure who I'd prioritize between Sengun and Amen and also not sure who Houston would prefer to keep in this scenario, but both are good centerpieces.
  5. Orlando - Have to be getting Paolo or Wagner to make any sense.
  6. Toronto - Would have to be centered around Scottie Barnes.
  7. Cleveland - Due to the Cavs' luxury tax situation, it's extremely complicated to make a trade that works financially. Think you'd basically have to send Mobley to Milwaukee and Garland to a 3rd team while dumping a lot of salary. One package that I've found that works financially is Cleveland sending those two out and getting Giannis and a relatively cheap piece from Brooklyn (Ziaire Williams, Haywood Highsmith, something like that) and Milwaukee gets Mobley, Terance Mann, and one of Highsmith/Ziaire and presumably picks).
  8. Golden State - From here on down, I'm probably just opting to keep Giannis and if we lose him for nothing, so be it. But Golden State can at least offer a bunch of future 1st round picks and maybe letting Kuminga go off for Milwaukee for a bit allows you to flip him for an asset in the future.
  9. Miami - I guess the package is likely Herro, Ware, Jaquez, and 2 first round picks and as many pick swaps as they can muster? Just doesn't interest me personally.
  10. Lakers - Would basically be built around Austin Reaves, who can leave in free agency, so pretty much a non-starter unless you know he'll sign long-term and even then, it's a weak package.
  11. New York - Just nothing remotely interesting to build a trade around.
 
Melancer46 said:
I think the Hawks are one of the teams that should absolutely consider making a trade for him and can actually make an interesting offer for him. Assuming they keep Trae in such a trade, I think Porzingis would need to be included (and even if Trae IS in the trade, I think you could make a case for a Porzingis-Turner swap to be in there too that benefits both parties if it means Milwaukee getting one more asset out of them).

My ranking of the teams that I could at least kinda see pursuing a Giannis trade (ignoring reports to the contrary for now because who knows what is and what isn't just posturing) would probably look something like:
  1. Atlanta - Would want both Jalen Johnson and the other half of our pick swap with New Orleans. If forced to settle for just one of those, honestly not sure where I'd land.
  2. OKC - Would prioritize Jalen Williams over Chet but am fine with either of them being a centerpiece. Feels extremely unlikely though.
  3. San Antonio - Would want both Harper and Castle. Would prioritize Harper if only getting one of them. If the reports are true that neither are on the table, then they simply are not a trade partner.
  4. Houston - Not sure who I'd prioritize between Sengun and Amen and also not sure who Houston would prefer to keep in this scenario, but both are good centerpieces.
  5. Orlando - Have to be getting Paolo or Wagner to make any sense.
  6. Toronto - Would have to be centered around Scottie Barnes.
  7. Cleveland - Due to the Cavs' luxury tax situation, it's extremely complicated to make a trade that works financially. Think you'd basically have to send Mobley to Milwaukee and Garland to a 3rd team while dumping a lot of salary. One package that I've found that works financially is Cleveland sending those two out and getting Giannis and a relatively cheap piece from Brooklyn (Ziaire Williams, Haywood Highsmith, something like that) and Milwaukee gets Mobley, Terance Mann, and one of Highsmith/Ziaire and presumably picks).
  8. Golden State - From here on down, I'm probably just opting to keep Giannis and if we lose him for nothing, so be it. But Golden State can at least offer a bunch of future 1st round picks and maybe letting Kuminga go off for Milwaukee for a bit allows you to flip him for an asset in the future.
  9. Miami - I guess the package is likely Herro, Ware, Jaquez, and 2 first round picks and as many pick swaps as they can muster? Just doesn't interest me personally.
  10. Lakers - Would basically be built around Austin Reaves, who can leave in free agency, so pretty much a non-starter unless you know he'll sign long-term and even then, it's a weak package.
  11. New York - Just nothing remotely interesting to build a trade around.
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I was shocked when I found out Porzingas was injured this year

(I in fact was not shocked)
 
STEVEHOLT said:
I was shocked when I found out Porzingas was injured this year

(I in fact was not shocked)
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Is he injured or sick or both lol. I know he's still suffering from POTS or whatever it's called.
 
Porzingis is sick again. Seems a little scary that he’s still fighting this.

It’s funny because to me if I’m the hawks I’m making Trae the centerpiece of my offer!

My gut says if giannis is traded this season the return ends up being pretty underwhelming. Maybe a different story if we get to the summer but then he’s just a year away from FA.
 
Here is the amen foul from end of regulation. No question there is contact and a fall . But how is it not incidental? hardaway jr invades amens normal running path just as much as amen does his. If it was amens foot i can see a better trip argument but his shin ? What’s amen supposed to do ? Let him get a two stride lead?

 
Melancer46 said:
I think the Hawks are one of the teams that should absolutely consider making a trade for him and can actually make an interesting offer for him. Assuming they keep Trae in such a trade, I think Porzingis would need to be included (and even if Trae IS in the trade, I think you could make a case for a Porzingis-Turner swap to be in there too that benefits both parties if it means Milwaukee getting one more asset out of them).

My ranking of the teams that I could at least kinda see pursuing a Giannis trade (ignoring reports to the contrary for now because who knows what is and what isn't just posturing) would probably look something like:
  1. Atlanta - Would want both Jalen Johnson and the other half of our pick swap with New Orleans. If forced to settle for just one of those, honestly not sure where I'd land.
  2. OKC - Would prioritize Jalen Williams over Chet but am fine with either of them being a centerpiece. Feels extremely unlikely though.
  3. San Antonio - Would want both Harper and Castle. Would prioritize Harper if only getting one of them. If the reports are true that neither are on the table, then they simply are not a trade partner.
  4. Houston - Not sure who I'd prioritize between Sengun and Amen and also not sure who Houston would prefer to keep in this scenario, but both are good centerpieces.
  5. Orlando - Have to be getting Paolo or Wagner to make any sense.
  6. Toronto - Would have to be centered around Scottie Barnes.
  7. Cleveland - Due to the Cavs' luxury tax situation, it's extremely complicated to make a trade that works financially. Think you'd basically have to send Mobley to Milwaukee and Garland to a 3rd team while dumping a lot of salary. One package that I've found that works financially is Cleveland sending those two out and getting Giannis and a relatively cheap piece from Brooklyn (Ziaire Williams, Haywood Highsmith, something like that) and Milwaukee gets Mobley, Terance Mann, and one of Highsmith/Ziaire and presumably picks).
  8. Golden State - From here on down, I'm probably just opting to keep Giannis and if we lose him for nothing, so be it. But Golden State can at least offer a bunch of future 1st round picks and maybe letting Kuminga go off for Milwaukee for a bit allows you to flip him for an asset in the future.
  9. Miami - I guess the package is likely Herro, Ware, Jaquez, and 2 first round picks and as many pick swaps as they can muster? Just doesn't interest me personally.
  10. Lakers - Would basically be built around Austin Reaves, who can leave in free agency, so pretty much a non-starter unless you know he'll sign long-term and even then, it's a weak package.
  11. New York - Just nothing remotely interesting to build a trade around.
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The thing about Houston is that they already have a lot of inside players, even if they move one of their big guys. Their floor spacing with Giannis would be a challenge, I think.

I could see Golden State wanting to add him to give Steph a shot at one more ring.
 
IthacaMatt said:
The thing about Houston is that they already have a lot of inside players, even if they move one of their big guys. Their floor spacing with Giannis would be a challenge, I think.

I could see Golden State wanting to add him to give Steph a shot at one more ring.
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Yeah I think it's absolutely fair if not correct that OKC, Houston, and San Antonio maybe just don't want to disrupt what they have. Likewise for the Knicks but they can't make a reasonable trade offer anyways without destroying their team. I think the others should probably be interested.
 
IthacaMatt said:
The thing about Houston is that they already have a lot of inside players, even if they move one of their big guys. Their floor spacing with Giannis would be a challenge, I think.

I could see Golden State wanting to add him to give Steph a shot at one more ring.
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We all know the NBA wants him either with the Lakers or Steph. Just like they delivered Doncic to La and then gifted the Mavs Flagg
 
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IthacaMatt said:
I was a little disappointed by the article, personally. It was more stats and cap space discussion, than "they should get a backup PG", etc.

Getting Giannis is like what the Knicks did to get Melo - gut their roster,

Whoever get Giannis loses. Whoever takes Anthony Davis loses. Whoever thinks about signing Lebron when his Lakers contract expires this summer loses.

These guys all make way too much money compared to their availability, and compared to the cost of replacement value equivalent players. With all 3 of those guys, you're paying for past performance, and none of them are good enough to guarantee you a championship.
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Unfortunately the salary cap / CBA literally bleeps up almost everything NBA teams want to accomplish in the trade market.

I wish the deadline was more about simply discussing needs like you have above. Knicks need a backup PG -- team "x" is out of it and they have a guard. But inevitably there is some cap rule, that makes such a trade difficult.

As for Giannis, good teams can't clear the cap space to sign him as a FA. So the only way they can acquire him is via trade.
 
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Knicks411 said:
I don’t think giannis should be discussed in the same class as LeBron or AD. Giannis is absolutely one of the 3 or 4 best players in the league right now.
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There isn't much point discussing things Giannis related with Matt.
He undersells him a lot.

He defended a Towns/First for Giannis proposal a few months back... now he is Embiid v2.
 
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jncuse said:
Unfortunately the salary cap / CBA literally bleeps up almost everything NBA teams want to accomplish in the trade market.

I wish the deadline was more about simply discussing needs like you have above. Knicks need a backup PG -- team "x" is out of it and they have a guard. But inevitably there is some cap rule, that makes such a trade difficult.

As for Giannis, good teams can't clear the cap space to sign him as a FA. So the only way they can acquire him is via trade.
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it makes these kinds of trades tough. Teams that want to trade for him are trying to win now so they dont want to trade valuable assets off their current rosters. Like-wise the Bucks wouldn't be interested in a bunch of draft picks from team that is going to be drafting at the end of the first round for the coming years.

Thats why you need a unique situation where a good team that wants him holds crappy team draft assets like Houston , ATL.
 

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