Lakers Rumors: Kuminga, Thybulle, Kaluma, Assistant GM Opening
Momentum has “stalled” on the Lakers‘ pursuit of free agent forward Jonathan Kuminga, according to Dan Woike of The Athletic. Rumors connecting Kuminga to Los Angeles have been ongoing since late June, but Woike hears that the Lakers and Hawks are still far apart on terms of a potential deal and L.A. isn’t “overly motivated” to include significant draft assets in any of its sign-and-trade offers.
However, Woike cautions that a potential Kuminga deal isn’t dead because it’s still the “biggest upside play” remaining for the Lakers’ offseason. Cleveland also reportedly has interest in Kuminga, but Woike can envision the Lakers reemerging as a possibility if the market remains slow.
Kuminga became a free agent when Atlanta declined its $24.3MM team option for next season. No team has enough remaining cap space to make the kind of offer that Kuminga is seeking, so he may have to rely on a sign-and-trade. It’s not clear how much interest the Hawks have in re-signing him, especially after adding forward Luguentz Dort in a three-team trade on Sunday.
There’s more on the Lakers:
- Woike confirms a recent report from The Stein Line that L.A. has interest in free agent wing Matisse Thybulle. He notes that injuries are the main concern with Thybulle, who played just 45 games over the past two years, but adds that he was healthy at the end of last season and could provide a low-cost three-and-D option. The team is also hoping to add another big man, team sources tell Woike.
- The Lakers may have to move quickly to sign Arthur Kaluma to a two-way contract before another team does, Woike adds. The 6’7″ forward, who played for the team’s G League affiliate last season, was one of the top performers in Summer League, averaging 18.6 PPG while shooting 60.9% from the floor and 50% from beyond the arc. Woike notes that current two-way players Chris Manon, AK Okereke and Peter Suder might be expendable, although Okereke impressed the coaching staff with his defense and shooting.
- Scouts in Las Vegas were wondering when president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka plans to name his second assistant general manager, per Woike. Rohan Ramadas was hired in May to run the team’s analytics department, and Pelinka said after the season ended that he also wants someone to oversee player development and scouting. The Lakers began conducting interviews for the position during the season, and league sources tell Woike that there’s external confusion about the process. He adds that Minnesota’s Steve Senior and Philadelphia’s Prosper Karangwa are believed to have turned down offers from L.A. to remain with their current teams.
Lakers Notes: LeBron, Friedman, Zaidi, Pelinka, Senior
Discussing his future on the latest episode of the Mind the Game podcast with co-host Steve Nash (YouTube link), Lakers forward LeBron James said he’ll need to take some time before he decides whether or not to continue his career and what the 2026/27 season might hold for him.
“I haven’t even really thought about it too much,” James said, per Khobi Price of The California Post. “Obviously, I understand that I’m a free agent and I can control my own destiny — being here with (the Lakers) for a foreseeable future or if it’s going somewhere else. But like, I haven’t even really even got to that point. I haven’t even taken my family vacation yet, which is going to happen after Memorial Day. That’s kind of the thing at the forefront of my mind.
“But, I think at some point in June, late June, as July rolls around, free agency starts to get going and as July rolls around and maybe into August, we start to kind of get a feel of what my future may look like. If it’s continuing to play the game that I love, which I know I can still give so much to the game and play at a high level, or if it’s not. But I have not gotten to that point yet.”
As Dave McMenamin of ESPN writes, James also addressed Los Angeles’ second-round loss to the Thunder during his discussion with Nash, suggesting that the Lakers – going up against the defending champions without top scorer Luka Doncic – were simply facing a talent deficit.
“We were not outworked, they didn’t out-physical us, they didn’t outsmart us,” LeBron said. “I feel like we were just out-talented by OKC. … At the end of the day, we failed in talent. OKC just possessed so much more talent than us. You can tip your cap to them, obviously, in understanding that. But you can’t get caught up in that, especially when you know you were undermanned.”
Here’s more on the Lakers:
- In an interesting story for Yahoo Sports, Yaron Weitzman examines how new Lakers owner Mark Walter has tasked the same two executives – Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi – who helped turn the Los Angeles Dodgers’ front office into one of MLB’s most sophisticated and successful operations to follow a similar blueprint with the Lakers. While Rob Pelinka and Kurt Rambis have led the search for a pair of new assistant general managers, Friedman and Zaidi have also been involved, Weitzman says, with at least one of them sitting in on most interviews.
- There has been some speculation about the involvement of Friedman and Zaidi leading to the Lakers replacing Pelinka as their head of basketball operations, but that’s not currently the plan, according to Weitzman, who notes that Pelinka is the one leading discussions with player agents in contract discussions and has told people he’s working “in collaboration” with the Dodgers execs.
- The Lakers offered Timberwolves assistant GM Steve Senior an executive VP of basketball operations role, but Senior opted to remain in Minnesota, multiple league sources tell Weitzman.
- Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron (Substack link) takes a closer look at the Lakers’ upcoming offseason, explaining what the team could do with its projected cap room and exploring what sort of contracts their free agents might get. Gozlan projects a deal in the neighborhood of $35-40MM per year for Austin Reaves and believes Rui Hachimura could receive a salary in the range of the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($15MM+).
Timberwolves To Hire Steve Senior As Assistant GM
The Timberwolves plan to hire Steve Senior from the Grizzlies as an assistant general manager with a focus on player development, according to Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic (Twitter links).
Senior has worked with several members of Minnesota’s organization in the past, including executive vice president of basketball operations Sachin Gupta and head coach Chris Finch with the Rockets, and assistant coach Pablo Prigioni with the Knicks, Krawczynski notes. Senior is highly regarded throughout the league.
Senior worked in player development with Memphis in addition to serving as director of video operations, per Chris Hine of The Star Tribune. He spent several years with the Knicks in player development and as a video coordinator, among other roles, tweets Ian Begley of SNY.tv, who adds that Senior is “well-respected” in New York.
It’s an interesting hire for the Timberwolves for a couple of different reasons. Firstly, they’re poaching Senior from the Grizzlies, the team that just beat them in the first round of the playoffs. Grizzlies GM Zach Kleiman was named the Executive of the Year earlier today, and player development has been a big factor in the team’s success.
Secondly, it’s one of the first major moves for Gupta, who received a first-place vote for Executive of the Year despite still only having an interim head of basketball operations title following the dismissal of Gersson Rosas in September. Minnesota previously signed Finch and all of his assistant coaches to multiyear contract extensions after the regular season concluded, and Finch and Gupta have publicly supported each other.