Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[Chicagojk]

The NBA Front Office podcast yesterday spent a fairly long time discussing Christian Wood.  It was in response to a question, but kind of random for them to spend that much time on a player of his stature.  

They see two paths for Wood.  non-TP MLE or a Mav’s S&T in the low teens.  They talked about this last year in Dallas.  Wood’s fault or Kidd’s fault?  A little of both was the political answer.  Wood didn’t adapt well to coming off the bench.  But, Kidd never figured out how to use him either.  They don’t think he’s a four.  

Finding a place for him is difficult because he’s not a good defender and most teams want their center to defend well. Does any of this sound familiar?  When pressed for a landing spot, two names came up…Philly as offensive depth (which makes sense to me if they played him next to Paul Reed when Embiid sits).  The other spot was Phoenix…especially if Ayton is moved.  They also commented about a Ramona Shelburne report about Harden ending up in Phoenix.  Not sure how Harden gets to Phoenix in a S&T without Ayton either gone or outgoing.  This led to a CP3 discussion and they didn’t connect the dots back to Wood, but they thought that if Ramona was talking Harden to Phoenix, it might be worth paying attention to.

One of my favorites for MLE Money this year, depending on what else we do, is Naz Reid.   I saw an article by Jake Fischer saying he was a target for the Suns last year.  What happens if he is over an MLE guy at around 15-17 per year.  Tough for Minnesota to justify that money with their current roster.    

So question, any way to give Naz Reid with Hardaway to PhX and Dallas gets Ayton.   Minnesota gets Maxi and ????.   Anyway for that to work without giving up #10 or our young players that would help Minny out???   Maxi and Wood seem like too many big guys for them.    Also not sure how you would make that trade legal.