The Lakers get their center in Poeltl and upgrade on the wing with DeRozan. A starting five of Luka, Reaves, DeRozan, LeBron, and Poeltl is deadly. With Vanderbilt, Vincent, Knecht and Goodwin off the bench, they just need a solid backup center. This also puts them on a two year timeline, as the contracts of Luka, DeRozan, Reaves and Poeltl, all expire at the same time. And by then, LeBron will probably have retired. While Luka will be just 28 years old. And they'll have a MOUNTAIN of cash to spend. The Lakers reroute their 2026 FRP for Poeltl, to Sacramento, and get a future SRP back in return.

Sacramento pivots, bringing in a haul for Sabonis with RJ, expiring contracts, and three future FRPs. They'd still be competitive with Monk, LaVine, RJ, Murray, Rui, DFS and Valanciunas. But the Sabonis, LaVine, DeRozan trio didn't really work, so they sell high. This also opens up over $44M in cap space next summer. And the year after that, RJ and LaVine will be on expiring contracts.

Toronto here is interesting. A core of Barnes, a healthy BI, Quickley and Sabonis, in a weakened Eastern Conference, is good enough to be the 4-5th seed. This also gets them under the second apron.