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

[Kidnova]

The path doesn't appear easy but I think it is there.

Coop, Max, Nembhard, Lively, and Cisse (and maybe Ajinca) are nice young pieces to start the rebuild process.
We should have a decent pick this year that we simply can't miss on to add to that group.

If we can yield another young player with some upside and a draft pick from some combination of trading Klay, Gaff and Naji, that would be 1 or 2 more. Then we have AD and PJ as trade bait for the off season. If we can get a player or 2 with one year left on their contracts from
AD and PJ trades ,  we could have some space to sign a decent young player.

Seems pretty optimistic to lump Cisse into the building block bucket.  Even Lively is hard to count on as a core piece as his health is always a concern.  Coop is a future MVP candidate and Max and Nembhard seem like good role players, but your list is why I think this team is 3 or 4 years away from being a contender again, not 1 or 2 years.  That's why I'm in the tear it down and start over camp.  I don't think there's a competitive window available on Kyrie or ADs timeline, so accumulating as much draft capital as you can in the near term is important.