6th or 7th

West tiers/rankings as of 7/16: Tier 1: Thunder Tier 2: Nuggets, Rockets Tier 3: Clippers, Wolves Tier 4: Mavs, Lakers, Warriors, Spurs Tier 5: Suns, Blazers, Grizzlies Tier 6: Kings, Pelicans, Jazz (Tier lists are in order as well)

Absolutely love this move for both sides

Like this for the Lakers. Smart becomes LA’s best defender right away lol They’ll need to make some type of trade to clear enough room under the hard cap for this deal, wonder what that’ll be.

Yes, they can do this too. Personally, not the route I’d go. But if they have to, they have to.

The addition of Marcus Smart sorta alleviates the loss of DFS and makes this whole offseason slightly more palatable. I still wish future cap space wasn’t the priority when you have Luka Doncic and LeBron James on the roster.

Luka | Vincent | Bronny Reaves | Smart | Goodwin Rui | LaRavia | Thiero LeBron | Vando Ayton | Hayes | Maxi Either Goodwin is gone or someone else will be via trade.

Is this Darvin Ham’s burner?

I don’t think Marcus Smart should start because he’s started 27 basketball games in the last two calendar years. He’s going to start sometimes, and will almost for sure be in closing lineups, but he cannot be an 82-game starter with his recent health record.

Slightly disagree with this. It’s the Lakers, and they have Luka. Role players have been taking discounts to come to LA since free agency became a major part of the sport. Rob’s only real credit is keeping enough money open to allow agents to facilitate the real work.

Not necessarily, all based on context. The biggest brand in the sport with Luka and LeBron went into the summer with two obvious needs, so those archetypes’ agents pushed for a buyout to take those spots. That’s not Rob being savvy, that’s good market research by the agents

Lmao

You need good basketball players to get through the regular season. Goodwin would’ve been unironically like the 3rd or 4th best defensive player on the team lol

LeBron’s percentage of seasons making the NBA Finals ties Steve Kerr’s record 3-point percentage (45.4%). Basically, LeBron’s odds of making the Finals in a given year is higher than any player in history making a single three.

Winning a championship in a league with 8 teams < winning a championship in a league with 30

Made a top 100 current players list for a side project, but figured I’d share it here. Parameters: - 2025-26 season ONLY - Injured players (Dame, Hali, Tatum) ineligible but injury history can be factored for healthy guys - Contract values irrelevant Let me know how I did!

Eagle

Reaves and Caruso are very close in my rankings, but I have Reaves higher because I think more NBA teams would rather have Reaves’ skill set. But there are at least 8-10 I can think that would (or at least, should) prefer Caruso. Lakers are one of them.

Luka era in LA is officially underway

The NBA is the only league where you aren’t allowed to say that players are better than they used to be. Of course they’re better! They have every advantage over players that came before them simply by existing later. Players in 30 years will likely be better than today too.