Lakers: Could Celtics Player Rumored To Be On Trading Block Help Lakers?

The trade market is heating up.

Could your Los Angeles Lakers benefit from the addition of yet another point guard?

And if so, would 24-year-old Boston Celtics reserve guard Payton Pritchard, currently earning just $2.24 million on his rookie scale deal, move the needle for them?

Per Steve Bulpett of Heavy.com, several rival clubs have reached out about the availability of the 6'1" point guard, who finds himself on the fringes of the Celtics' rotation in his third season with Boston. 

New 6'5" sixth man combo guard Malcolm Brogdon, who had been a starter for most of his career before the Celtics traded for him out of Indiana this summer, has emerged as the team's preferred option at backup guard. He is averaging 13.3 points on .478/.433/.863 shooting splits, 4.1 rebounds, and 3.8 dimes a game across 23.5 minutes.

Pritchard, meanwhile, is averaging a career low 4.4 points on .400/.340/.700 shooting in 21 games, during a career-least 10.5 minutes a night. 

Granted, this is a team that is currently spending $69 million on four rotation players who are nominally point guards (Dennis Schröder, Patrick Beverley, Russell Westbrook and Kendrick Nunn). But if it's looking to win now, it will most likely wind up offloading at least two of those point guards this season to build out its wing depth or frontcourt.

For his career, Pritchard holds respectable, modest averages of 6.6 points on .432/.405/.895 shooting splits, 2.0 rebounds and 1.8 assists a night. He would instantly become the best-shooting point guard on the team's roster, and could still have some untapped upside, whereas everyone else on that club is on the downslope of his career. Any time the Lakers can add a floor-spacer alongside LeBron James, it's worth doing, and the best thing about it is that Pritchard could probably be had for cheap, perhaps just a future second-round pick and some salary-matching veteran's minimum contract. 

It may be worth considering, if this L.A. front office is actually interested in LeBron James -- which remains an open question.