Lakers News: Pundit Proposes LeBron James Trade To Create New Super Team
The idea of trading LeBron James has seemed to come up a ton recently. Since your Los Angeles Lakers were swept out of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets and James hinted at a possible retirement, many around the game have wondered where the Lakers go from here. Will James actually retire? Is he creating a ploy to get the Los Angeles front office to upgrade the team? Or does he want out of LA? Well, Fox Sports 1 analyst and personality Colin Cowherd seems to believe that trading James could be beneficial for both sides.
In his proposed scenario, the Lakers would send James up north to the Golden State Warriors and in return get forward Andrew Wiggins, guard Jordan Poole and young forward Jonathan Kuminga.
If this trade went down, it would pair James with Stephen Curry and form a lethal duo. It would allow the Warriors to extend their title window with their core players for another few seasons and give James a great shot at winning another title. However, for the Lakers, it would mean giving up on the pairing of James and Anthony Davis, who have won a title together and just reached the Western Conference Finals this season.
Los Angeles would get some nice young talent in Kuminga and Poole, but this return wouldn’t exactly be the best they could get if they ever traded away James. Poole was great last season, helping Golden State win another championship but he looked off in 2023. Maybe it was due to a pre-season altercation with Draymond Green but whatever it was, he wasn’t the same player.
Additionally, the Lakers got a very close look at Poole during their playoff series. Poole averaged 8.3 points per game over the six-game series and struggled mightily to get any sort of rhythm going. I’m not sure the Lakers front office would see him as a missing piece to their championship puzzle, especially without James.
Wiggins could provide some nice wing depth for Los Angeles, as the veteran forward averaged 17.1 points in the limited games he played this season. He is still only 28-years-old so Los Angeles could have some thing to work with but again, they could likely find more talent. And as far as Kuminga goes, he has showed flashes of what he can do in the inconsistent minutes that he has gotten from the team but is still largely unknown as far as his ceiling.
All in all, if James tells the Lakers that he wants to be traded to Golden State then sure, this could be a good deal. But unless that very specific request takes place, Los Angeles is better to hold onto the King and run it back for another chance at a title.
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