Are the Los Angeles Lakers going to make any moves this offseason? We’re roughly midway through the summer, and yet they haven’t brought in a single player from another team.
Their only newcomers who are on standard contracts are draft picks Dalton Knecht and Bronny James. While Knecht, the No. 17 pick in June’s draft, was expected by many to be a top-10 pick and is considered arguably the most NBA-ready incoming rookie, he cannot necessarily be expected to make a sizable impact this coming season.
Just about everyone agrees the Lakers need a two-way wing and a defensive center. Some would also say they need a legitimate third scorer, if not a legitimate third star.
To that end, Grant Hughes of Bleacher Report suggested the Lakers ship out four players in return for the Chicago Bulls’ Zach LaVine, a player they’ve been repeatedly been linked to.
Via Bleacher Report:
“The Trade: Los Angeles Lakers acquire Zach LaVine from the Chicago Bulls for Rui Hachimura, Austin Reaves, Jarred Vanderbilt and Jaxson Hayes,” wrote Hughes.
“LeBron James and Anthony Davis are still as good as it gets among NBA duos, and the Lakers can’t go into the 2024-25 season without taking a big swing at supporting them with more high-end talent.
“You’ll notice we didn’t say ‘high-end availability and a demonstrated capacity to drive winning.’ That’s because Zach LaVine, who’s been viewed as something pretty close to trade poison over the last year or so, doesn’t have those things. What he does have is elite scoring skill, as demonstrated by his pair of All-Star nods and 2022-23 average of 24.8 points on a 48.5/37.5/84.8 shooting split.”
LaVine is a somewhat polarizing player. While he is a proven scorer and a pretty efficient one, as Hughes pointed out, it is unclear whether the numbers he puts up can make an impact on a winning team. He has played on a team that finished with a winning record just once — that was in the 2021-22 season when the Bulls won 26 of their first 36 games but lost 15 of their final 22.
Then there is his injury history. He has appeared in over 67 games just once in the last eight seasons, and he played in just 25 games this past season.
If that wasn’t enough, the trade Hughes suggested would leave Los Angeles bereft of frontcourt depth while jettisoning arguably their only effective wing or perimeter defender in Vanderbilt.