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

[cow]

OKC accepted losing to not skip steps.  Plenty of others choose the opposite.

76ers embraced the process too.  OKC is interesting as they had a lot of success with KD/Russ/Harden and then with KD/Russ and then with Russ, but got out of the Russ business at the appropriate time.  All that success buys you a lot of grace with the fanbase and they had a good GM with a vision.  

Comparatively, here we are coming off of a bad GM who gave us a large deficit in draft capital.  We have no incentive to be bad after this year and I think Cooper has shown enough that he can prevent you from being a bottom feeder even with a supporting cast that is mostly hurt and/or role players.  Our neighboring basketball teams look to be the cream of the crop in the West for the near term.  That sets my sights on 5-7 years from now which gives us time to get a new GM to dig out of our current mess while developing Cooper and hopefully a running mate in this years draft.  Because of our asset situation, I'm in no rush to make any moves.   Yes, I'd like to be a little worse this year, but that can be accomplished without trading players away.  And as favorable as the ping pong ball God were to us this past year, I expect we return to the norm after that incredible luck.  And while our situation isn't ideal, there is a lot of freedom to be had in not being married to anyone on the roster outside of Cooper (I'd argue Nembhard too) and also not having to be bad after this year.   Keep developing Cooper and trade away the plus assets when it makes the most sense to build towards five years from now.