Regardless of the outcome of tonight's contest against the Minnesota Timberwolves, your Los Angeles Lakers need to make a trade. You know it, I know it, Russell Westbrook knows it. Apparently, the Lakers themselves may not know it, as they have not been in contact with potential trade partners since the official start of the 2022-23 NBA season. Or maybe they're just biding their time.
During a Wednesday appearance on "Get Up," Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (h/t to Clutch Points), provided an intriguing update on the status of the Lakers' potential Russell Westbrook deals with several trade targets:
Bottom-lining it, here is the pertinent quote from Wojnarowski:
"All the deals the Lakers didn't want to do in the offseason -- that's all that's there two weeks into the season. Teams don't really get serious about doing deals and maybe pivoting away from trying to be a playoff team... they're not going to do that until 20 or 30 games into the season... Utah, Indiana, who the Lakers talked with a lot in the offseason, I'm told they've not heard from the Lakers yet this season... So people are going to have to get used to a team that's not going to be able to make dramatic change for a while if really at all this year."
If the Lakers stand pat with the Westbrook contract through the deadline, that would be a criminal mishandling of LeBron James, one of the best players of all time, while he's still playing at an All-NBA level. But let's not assume that is the case. What is far more likely, as Woj has mentioned before, is that the Lakers are hoping to circle their wagons in a month or so and find an even more desperate team with whom to make a deal. What if the Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers continue to spiral (I could see that happening in the former case but not the latter)? Will there be some other discontented player L.A. might like to target?
The issue is, given L.A.'s formidable schedule and their relatively lackluster on-court product, the team might dig itself into too deep a hole if it waits too long. So here's hoping the front office picks up the phone and calls the Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs, Charlotte Hornets, or Utah Jazz.
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