Lakers News: Possible LA Trade Target May Become Part Of Kyrie Irving-Dallas Deal

Maybe LA should pick up that phone this afternoon.

Your Los Angeles Lakers may have lost out on their preferred trade deadline target, soon-to-be-Dallas Mavericks All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving, over the weekend. Now, it appears the team will need to move quickly should it want to add one of the other more gettable star-caliber point guards reportedly available via trade.

Marc Stein reports that, ahead of a trade call to make the Irving-to-Dallas deal official in the coming hours, the Brooklyn Nets are hoping to expand the deal to a third team. Specifically, sources inform Stein that Brooklyn is hoping to move point guard Spencer Dinwiddie, currently headed to the Nets, and future draft equity to the Toronto Raptors, in exchange for 2022 All-Star point guard Fred VanVleet.

Stein also adds that the Nets may be interested in pursuing power forward/center Pascal Siakam, though the Raptors are more reticent to surrender the All-NBA big man in a deal this season.

As we outlined earlier today, VanVleet should very much be a Lakers trade target this year, so it would behoove team vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka to call up Toronto team president Masai Ujiri forthwith and make his best offer. A deal shipping out Russell Westbrook's expiring $47.1 million contract for the contracts of VanVleet (worth $21.3 million this season), shooting guard Gary Trent Jr. ($17.5 million) and combo forward Otto Porter Jr. ($6 million), all of whom are signed beyond this season, would be close enough to make a trade doable, depending on what level of future draft picks LA surrenders. 

Would Ujiri take on the Westbrook money as long as LA included, say, its unprotected 2027 first round pick, a future first round pick swap, and a second? Would he demand both future firsts? And if so, would Los Angeles be willing to make that move, which it was apparently prepared to do for just a few guaranteed months with Irving?