Lakers News: Players, Front Office Divided On How To Approach Season

Not great, Bob.

Your Los Angeles Lakers are unsure of whether or not they should make severe changes to their on-court personnel, according to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report.

Sources inform Haynes that L.A. All-Star LeBron James, pretty understandably, wants to be surrounded with quality players while making a postseason push in his 20th NBA season. Haynes adds that "other core players" hope the Lakers flip one or both of their 2027 and 2029 future first-round picks to improve the club now.

The front office seems to be more reticent to move off Russell Westbrook's expiring $47.1 million contract and, more to the point, both those draft selections. L.A. could wait to make a big transaction until draft night 2023, when the club would also be able to package its 2023 draft pick in a deal. Keep in mind, as part of the trade that landed Anthony Davis in Los Angeles from New Orleans, the Pelicans have swap rights on said 2023 pick, so L.A. would be trading the worse pick between its own selection and New Orleans's.

Los Angeles is apparently dubious that it can massively improve itself by adding Indiana Pacers vets Myles Turner and Buddy Hield to the team's roster in an oft-discussed trade that would send the Westbrook contract and one or both of the 2027 and 2029 picks to Indiana. 

Such a transaction would add defense (in the case of Turner) and shooting (in the case of both players) to a team devoid of both. The 6'11" Turner can play either center or power forward, which would be ideal for Anthony Davis. Davis has explicitly expressed that he prefers to play at the four spot, though he has almost exclusively been used at center by head coach Darvin Ham.

Granted, there is a lot of room for improvement on this team, which at 2-9 is looking like one of the NBA's worst. It makes sense, to an extent, that L.A. would like to hold on to its future picks, given that the current club is not remotely close to true contender status, and probably wouldn't really have much of a shot even with Hield or Turner.

On the other hand, it's a massive indictment of the team's front office that a team featuring two all-time great players still near-ish to the peak of their powers has been this bad. Russell Westbrook is far past his prime, but James and Davis are still All-Star-level players at least.