LeBron basically just said in the Mind The Game Podcast that he will play as a Laker next season! Let’s go Lakers! Banner #18 for the Lakers and ring #5 for LeBron!

Just kinda paints picture that guards have a hard time with OKC in general. Castle isn’t getting as much hate for his TOs as much as Reeves early in the series. Hate Reeves or love him, even if he played above his ceiling they just aren’t deep enough. Reeves hate is always overblown.

Edit: *Reaves. Old man fingers. Seems like the hate is still fresh 😅

Edit2: y’all so emotional. This is more is a testament of how guard defense on OKC side kills everyone. 21 or 28 in age aside, if castle was a laker, you’d all still throw him to the wolves for 20 TOs in two games, guaranteed. Good debate though, y’all entitled to your opinion. I respect it 🥰

Good thing a lot of arm chair GM's aren't running the Lakers. Glad the org had the balls to to not give in and rush the literal face of the franchise back too soon.

Sign Robert Williams III || 2 years $18M ascending || $8,780,488 starting

Sign Rui Hachimura || 3 years $48M ascending || $15,226,011 starting

Sign Ayo Dosunmu || 3 years $48M ascending || $15,226,011 starting

Sign LeBron James || 2 years $41.6M (No trade clause | 2nd year player option) $20,823,211 starting

Cap is now all gone now CAP HOLDS SIGNINGS

Sign Austin Reaves || 5 years $168M descending || $40,000,000 starting

Sign Jaxson Hayes || 2 years $10M descending || $5,000,000 starting

3-team trade for Watson and Sharpe

Lakers receive: $30,129,651 incoming

Peyton Watson || 4 years $102.9M ascending || $23,879,651 starting

Day'Ron Sharpe || 6,250,000

Nuggets receive: $4,201,080 incoming

Dalton Knecht || $4,201,080

Lakers 2031 1st unprotected

(2028 swap if 1st is NOT ENOUGH)

Nets receive: $18,428,571

Lakers 2033 1st TOP-15 protected

Lakers 2033 2nd Top-40 protected

Jarred Vanderbilt || $12,428,571

Jake LaRavia || $6,000,000

DEPENDING ON THE TRADE, YOU CAN RECEIVE MORE SALARY THAN OUTGOING

ANOTHER WAY TO GO OVER THE CAP AFTER EVERYTHING IS SIGNED

Room Exception

Marcus Smart || 2 years $19,323,300 || $9,426,000 starting salary

Vet Mininum

Matisse Thybulle || 1 year $2,450,000

FULL CAP SHEET

Player	Salary / Cap Hit
Luka Dončić	$49,500,000
Austin Reaves	$40,000,000
Peyton Watson	$23,879,651
LeBron James	$20,823,211
Rui Hachimura	$15,226,011
Ayo Dosunmu	$15,226,011
Marcus Smart	$9,426,000
Robert Williams III	$8,780,488
Day’Ron Sharpe	$6,250,000
Jaxson Hayes	$5,000,000
2026 #25 pick	$2,983,320
Matisse Thybulle vet-min cap hit	$2,450,000
Bronny James	$2,296,271
Adou Thiero	$2,150,917

Total Salary: $203,991,880

Room below 1st apron hard cap: $6,338,120

> OVER THE PAST three decades, Ndiaye has represented some of the best players to come from France: Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum, Evan Fournier. He has known Wembanyama's family for almost as long. Wembanyama's mother, Elodie, even coached Ndiaye's son when he was just 5 years old.

> He always has understood the responsibility in representing a player with Wembanyama's natural athletic and mental gifts. But as Wembanyama has grown into his extraordinary talent, Ndiaye has also come to see it as a privilege.

> "I am always trying to think ahead and see how we can train this kid differently, because he's different," Ndiaye said. "We have to do something for him, not just do something with him."

> Last April, he called Los Angeles Lakers general manager and president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka, who represented Kobe Bryant for much of his career, and scheduled a lunch.

> The reason was simple.

> "The way they think is different," Ndiaye told ESPN. "The way they play, the way they stretch themselves. Just their curiosity. How they study and watch things. They're both very creative on how to solve a problem."

---

> Wembanyama's problem to solve last spring, Ndiaye said, was how to be more physical on the court without bulking up. How to get stronger without losing the flexibility and athleticism that make his body so unique. How to move differently so he could impose his will and his length and his prodigious skill set inside the 3-point line, where his opponents usually choose a player 30 to 50 pounds heavier to rough him up.

> "Basically he wanted to have a physical transformation so he can run forever and use his physical tools to get closer to the basket," Ndiaye said. "And then he wanted to be challenged."

> Mentally, physically, spiritually. Challenged in every way a supremely conditioned athlete who already pushes himself harder than most humans can be challenged.

> Pelinka listened while Ndiaye talked. He knew the type.

> Bryant used to do that, too, he told him. One summer Bryant had become obsessed with studying how great white sharks hunt and attack their prey. So it became Pelinka's job to find him the best place in the world to do that -- which is apparently Guadalupe, an island 150 miles off the coast of Baja, Mexico, where you can go cage diving in the crystal clear waters.

> Bryant would later write in The Players' Tribune in 2017 that his study of great whites helped him defend Allen Iverson.

> Then there was Bryant's obsession with the Sistine Chapel. Pelinka arranged for him to travel there one summer for a private tour guided by an art historian.

> Bryant was fascinated by how Michelangelo had painted a three-dimensional masterpiece while lying on scaffolding in a space without abundant natural light, Pelinka told Ndiaye.

> The lesson was not about the techniques used but the vision and perseverance to create something extraordinary under impossible conditions.

> Ndiaye nodded along as Pelinka recounted these stories, both men delighting in the intellectual curiosity each of their star clients brought to their craft.

> "I wanted to understand how Kobe did things," Ndiaye told ESPN. "So that we could learn from him. Victor is not like anybody else. We have to be creative to build programs that are unique to him."

Watching the okc spurs game 1 one thing i have realised is how great of a playmaker luka really is. Likee there were literal 3-4 times when i thought to myself " if it was luka this was a lob" " if it was luka it was a pass" even shai is not an elite playmaker and it shows in these matchups. I really think that luka can give more competition to wemby than what sga is doing out there( if luka had a better team). Luka's playmaking is really vital come playoff time cus simple passes and reads can change these close games.