Lakers News: Expert Confused As To Why LA Is Hesitant To Trade Picks This Year

Is the Lake Show cheaping out?

Your Los Angeles Lakers lost a 119-115 double overtime heartbreaker last night against the Dallas Mavericks. The healthy Lakers did their darnedest, but as Kenny Smith noted on the game's TNT broadcast, the longer the game continued, the higher the odds that the better club would win out.

Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today wonders why the Lakers are so hesitant to make trades to shore up the team's depth and support LeBron James, who Zillgitt feels is putting up yet another All-NBA season. 

Through his 32 healthy games, the 38-year-old is averaging 29 points while shooting 50.3% shooting from the floor and 74.7% shooting from the charity stripe (let's not talk about his three-point percentage), 8.4 rebounds, 6.8 assists, and a steal.

The LA front office appears to be interested in holding onto its two biggest trade assets: its 2027 and 2029 first-round draft picks which, given the age of this roster's core and the relative ability of team vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka, should be pretty high.

"James is putting up unprecedented stats for a 38-year-old star in his 20th NBA season, and it seems very un-Lakers-like not to do anything," Zillgitt writes. "This is one of the NBA’s flagship franchises with a league-high 17 championships. Instead of acting like a franchise in a premier market with significant resources, they are behaving like a small-market team worried about assets.

"Why, when you have LeBron James, are you not doing all you can to win a title now?"

The man has a point.

As Zillgitt notes, even with a sub-.500 record of 19-23, the 12th-seeded Lakers are hardly out of the playoff hunt just yet. The club is currently a mere 5.5 games behind the fourth-seeded Mavericks, who stand at a 24-19 record.

James has recently expressed his apparent frustration with his current roster in a variety of passive-aggressive postgame snipes.