Trade & FA 2025-26: Free Agency Starts 5pm CST/6pm EST

[michaeltex]

Is it almost time to start a new thread for 2026-27 FA period?

[Knutsen]

https://scoopb.com/2026/04/grizzlies-off...nevitable/


Ja's offseason of uncertainty.

Provocative question and I know it won’t ever happen: would you see him as a great fit next to Cooper purely from a basketball perspective?

[michaeltex]

Provocative question and I know it won’t ever happen: would you see him as a great fit next to Cooper purely from a basketball perspective?

Nope.

Apart from all the knucklehead issues, Ja was successful flying to the basket, like the second coming of Derek Rose. Also like Rose, leg issues started cropping up to clip his wings. For a career 0.311 3pt shooter who can no longer fly, I don't know how he stays in the league, much less becomes a key contributor on a growth team like DAL.

He's owed $87M over the next two years and has a 15% trade kicker, so it's going to cost something for MEM to get him off the roster. They have their FRPs for the next several years, but not much else beyond that, except for a smattering of SRPs, some of which are encumbered by swaps. They aren't hurting cap-wise (<$150M with current contracts + FRP), but Ja is going to be a roadblock for moving forward over the next few years and there are a lot of rookie deals coming up for extension over the next couple years.

For DAL to take on Ja, it would have to have more in return, but I don't know what that would be.

[SkenfromLMF]

I do not know about a Great fit... BUT I could see Ja as a Kyrie type of investment to buy low and increase the basketball talent all the while hoping for a similar uptick value.
In fact, I have often thought about trying to flip KI for Ja when his contract is up and we would rather have something than nothing under contract. I would hope KI would have value as an expiring contract in this type of scenario and extract a tip from Memphis to get out from under Morant.

[mvossman]

I do not know about a Great fit... BUT I could see Ja as a Kyrie type of investment to buy low and increase the basketball talent all the while hoping for a similar uptick value.
In fact, I have often thought about trying to flip KI for Ja when his contract is up and we would rather have something than nothing under contract. I would hope KI would have value as an expiring contract in this type of scenario and extract a tip from Memphis to get out from under Morant.

Except that Ja was never near as good as Kyrie, the injury concerns are a much bigger concern, and he is a different kind of knucklehead, one that I think is less likely to go away.  If we ever do trade away Kyrie (and I am skeptical that happens) I hope its for something better than a high risk negative asset.

[Chicagojk]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/9iiKveAuWt

[Winter]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/9iiKveAuWt

I suspect that's true. The only leak that likely happened was Nico to Kidd. I never thought any of the players knew.