Lakers Rumors: Is Another Jazz Trade On The Horizon?
Your Los Angeles Lakers might, thankfully, not be done wheeling and dealing this summer. Per Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today (via Twitter), L.A. may consider trading for a few other Utah Jazz veterans, including Bojan Bogdanovic, Mike Conley, and one-time Laker Jordan Clarkson.
The Jazz, of course, have been in teardown mode all summer, and appear hungry to ship out as many veterans as they can flip for draft picks. All-Stars Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell are now both off their roster, as are Patrick Beverley (the newest Laker) and Royce O'Neal. These moves would undoubtedly improve L.A.'s roster, although part of that stems from the player being subtracted. Are any of these hypothetical Utah additions going to actually nudge the needle towards a title this season? Absolutely not.
Bogdanovic, Conley, and Clarkson would really help L.A. on offense (in that order of helpfulness), but none are particularly helpful on the other side of the ball. Conley was a 2012-13 All-Defensive player while with the Memphis Grizzlies, but that was many moons ago. Ideally, the Lakers would be adding help on both ends of the court.
As Rory Maher of Hoops Rumors suggests, trading Russell Westbrook for a package of, say, Bogdanovic, Malik Beasley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker would bolster L.A.'s depth and add some much-needed shooting, and all three could effectively reach free agency in 2023 to help open up L.A.'s cap room. Alexander-Walker has a team option for the 2023-24 season that the Lakers could decline if necessary. But none of these guys is nearly at the talent level of Pacers big man Myles Turner. A trade for Turner and his swingman colleague Buddy Hield feels like exactly the deal L.A. needs to make. If it involves mortgaging the future, too bad. LeBron James turns 38 in three months.
L.A. is apparently hoping to carve out some cap space to sign free agents in 2023. LeBron James could move down a qualitative tier or two at any point. Per StatMuse, only one player in history outclasses James in terms of combined postseason and regular season minutes. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar currently boasts the record cumulative NBA mileage, having played 66,297 minutes to the second-place James's 63,175. James should pass that benchmark soon enough. The fact that he remains an All-NBA talent (i.e. a top 15 player in the league at worst) is remarkable. There's no guaranteeing that can last through the 2022-23 season, let alone the 2023-24 season.
Assuming old heads James, Anthony Davis and Patrick Beverley can stay healthy, the Lakers could legitimately transform themselves into fringe playoff contenders with a starting five of Beverley, Hield, James, Davis, and Turner. Head coach Darvin Ham could cobble together workable bench output from Juan Toscano-Anderson, Austin Reaves, Lonnie Walker IV, and one of Thomas Bryant or Damian Jones. I'll believe that Kendrick Nunn can stay healthy when I see it, and conversely I've seen enough of Troy Brown Jr. to know that was a wasted signing. Perhaps Wenyen Gabriel can work his way into the rotation though!
There have been a handful of other rumored trade partners for Los Angeles. A deal that sends Westbrook to the Spurs would most likely be (ahem) centered around defensive-oriented big man Jakob Poeltl and sharpshooting forward Doug McDermott, with Josh Richardson and Romeo Langford included for salary-matching purposes. Richardson has the outlines of a bench 3-and-D player, but the defense element of that needs some work. Poeltl is not the versatile two-way player that Turner is, and McDermott is essentially a bigger, less instinctive forward version of Hield. So this honestly might be this writer's second-favorite team that could be receptive to adding Westbrook.
The time to win is now. Though it appears L.A. is reticent to get tied up by long-term money and to surrender both of its much-discussed 2027 and 2029 first-round draft picks, the club needs to realize the urgency of the moment. It's time to find a way to offload Russell Westbrook's $47.1 million expiring salary and turn that into reliable winning players who can help spread the floor for the Lakers' two stars. Though this writer prefers the Pacers deal, if that does wind up going off the board, Utah and San Antonio could conceivably offer up some intriguing packages. And perhaps L.A. could make further changes when contracts signed this summer are able to be traded midway through the season.
