Lakers News: Pundit Pitches Trade With Tanking Eastern Conference Club

The February 9th trade deadline is right around the corner.

Let's be real: your Los Angeles Lakers, as currently comprised, have no prayer at winning the 2023 NBA title.

We know that, and they know that. Well, at least LeBron James and Darvin Ham know that.

The real question now is: are they going to do anything about that?

Rome wasn't built in a day, and a Lakers return to true title contention could also take more than one individual trade. It's unclear if Los Angeles ownership and management is even committed to actually getting back to the heady championship contention space they occupied during the first two seasons of the LeBron James-Anthony Davis partnership while that dynamic duo is still on the team (I still think they could have beaten the Phoenix Suns in the first round had Davis's body survived that series).

Greg Swartz of Bleacher Report proposes the first piece to this puzzle with an interesting deal for a long-rumored LA trade target: sharpshooting veteran Detroit Pistons power forward Bojan Bogdanovic, an elite three-point marksman and jump shooter in general who could help open up the floor for Los Angeles. 

Even though Bogdanovic's $19.3 million contract lines up pretty nicely with the combined salaries of underperforming LA veteran guards Patrick Beverley and Kendrick Nunn ($18.3 million collectively), Swartz is thinking bigger for LA. Swartz is considering a Russell Westbrook deal.

Swartz proposes that the Lakers send the 12-36 Lakers ship out their 2027 unprotected first-round draft pick (one of two future firsts LA can deal tis season), a 2023 second-rounder, Westbrook's $47.1 million expiring deal, and promising young rookie shooting guard Max Christie. In exchange, the Pistons would get back Bogdanovic, reserve shooting guard Alec Burks and the expiring contract of center Nerlens Noel.

Bogdanovic inked a two-year, $39 million extension that will keep him under contract through 2024-25, his age-35 season, so the Lakers would need to be ready to keep him rostered for the long haul, and to hope that he would age gracefully. This season, the 6'7" forward is averaging a career-high 21.2 points on .487/.415/.885 shooting splits with Detroit, plus 3.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists, across 44 starts. That 41.5% three-point mark arrives on a high-volume 5.9 triple tries a night.

Burks, 31, would represent an upgrade over Christie in the short-term, though he lacks Christie's defensive upside at this stage in his journeyman career. The 6'6" Pistons swingman is averaging 13.8 points on .465/.453/.810 shooting splits, three rebounds and 2.2 assists through 34 games as a reserve with a rebuilding Detroit club.

Noel is just a throw-in to make contracts work, though he'd at least be a defensive improvement over Thomas Bryant.

Given that the Lakers are one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the NBA, both in terms of frequency and in terms of consistency, the additions of Burks and more importantly Bogdanovic would vastly improve the roster right now. Would they actually be enough to help the Lakers win? Probably not, the team needs more help defensively, and that's not a skillset either player is particularly adept in at this career stage. But it's a start, and it would help the Lakers get more definitively into that 6-10 seed range than they right now (at 20-25, the Lakers are currently the 13th seed in the West).