Fan-Favorite Lakers Trade Rumor Resurfaces as Five Players Linked in Potential Draft Deal

The Lakers are still in trade talks for the deal fans were clamoring to see happen throughout the 2022-23 NBA season.

The Lakers enter the 2023 NBA offseason with multiple potential approaches on the table. Unfortunately, for those hoping to see a "splash" trade or top-tier signing from the Lakers, that outcome appears to be unlikely.

Although names like Damian Lillard, Kyrie Irving and Trae Young are appealing as potential fits, adding any of the three would make life miserable for the Lakers in terms of building out the rest of the roster. But if there was ever an “old reliable” trade rumor for Lakers fans to lean on, it’d be the chatter around a possible deal to bring Myles Turner and Buddy Hield to Los Angeles.

Fortunately, that’s back at the forefront of the conversation ahead of the 2023 NBA draft. The potential Lakers-Pacers deal headlined a list of five players (six if you include Kristaps Porziņģis, before he was dealt to the Celtics) that have been linked to the Lakers recently, according to The Athletic's Jovan Buha.

“Names around the league that have been linked to the Lakers in recent weeks include Indiana’s Myles Turner and Buddy Hield, Brooklyn’s Dorian Finney-Smith and Royce O’Neale, Toronto’s Gary Trent Jr. and Washington’s Kristaps Porziņģis, according to multiple league sources not authorized to speak publicly,” Buha explained.

The potential deal sending Turner and Hield to the Lakers is one that’s been publicly highlighted by fans and analysts alike. It’d provide an immediate upgrade for two of the Lakers’ biggest areas of need, adding Turner as a big man next to Anthony Davis and Hield as a reliable and consistent shooting from beyond the arc, an area where he thrived last season, knocking down 42.5 percent of his attempts from 3-point range.