What blowing it up looks like

You wanted a blow up? you got a blow up!

Assume the front office is targeting 2026 free agency, so we're only taking back 1 year expiring contracts while trying to clear our own 2026 space. This is probably all completely unrealistic but you get what you pay for.

Bam

Assuming they're interested, the best trade partner available (for us) would be the Pelicans. They have all their picks, plus Indiana's 2027 pick (protected 1-4), plus swap rights with Milwaukee in 2026 and 2027. I don't know if they want to abandon all of that but they could theoretically send us Indiana's 2026 pick with swap rights for the best of milwaukee or pelicans if it conveys, the 2027 pick with swap rights, and a 2029 pick. They could also include a 2031 pick and swap rights in all the other years but I think that's too much. Bam gets re-united with kelly olynyk and the Pelicans make a run with Bam, Zion, DeJounte Murray, Trey Murphy III, and their 2025 lottery pick. This is a very respectable lineup and they still have space to make one more move.

Tyler

Assuming they're interested, houston makes a good trade partner (for us). They have their picks from 2027-2031, plus incoming from phoenix in 2025 and 2027. They could give us the phoenix pick in 2027 and their pick in 2028. To make salaries match, it looks like Tyler and wiggins for VanVleet's expiring and Jabari Smith Jr's expiring.

This leaves us with only Kyle Anderson, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Kel'el Ware, Pelle Larsson, and this year's draft pick under contract for 2026, for a total of like 22 million dollars give or take. The salary cap is projected to be 170 million!! so this gives us room to sign up to like 3 max contracts.

For sure we would get a great pick in 2026. We would also have all of our future draft picks (except 2027) plus 5 more. So we could trade for a disgruntled player right into that cap space. In fact there really aren't that many awesome free agents in 2026 so this would be the most likely outcome. It's even possible the expiring contracts we pick up would be re-flipped at the trade deadline with some of our newly acquired picks and we wouldn't even make it to 2026 free agency, assuming someone asks out by then.

Would I do this??? no! But it would be something!