LeBron James, Anthony Davis want Lakers to be aggressive on trade market

With just 15 days left until the NBA’s 2025 trade deadline arrives, Lakers stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis are “growing concerned” about the team’s ability to make significant upgrades on the trade market, league sources tell ESPN's Shams Charania.

According to Charania, James and Davis believe the Lakers could be just a piece or two away from contending for a title and have expressed that they want the front office to make moves to try to add those pieces.

That lines up with reporting from Jovan Buha of The Athletic, who wrote on Tuesday that James and Davis favor an “all-in approach” on the trade market and noted that LeBron has “never valued draft picks.”

The Lakers, who currently rank sixth in the Western Conference at 23-18, have two tradable first-round picks in 2029 and 2031. They also have a pair of 2025 second-rounders (their own and the Clippers’) and could swap first-round picks for up to three years (2026, 2028 and 2030).

The front office — led by executive VP of basketball operations Rob Pelinka — has recently taken a relatively conservative approach at the trade deadline, opting against making any moves in 2021, 2022, and 2024. In 2023, the club gave up Russell Westbrook and a lightly protected first-round pick to land D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt — that deal helped propel them to a strong second-half finish and a spot in the Western Conference Finals.

The Lakers, who already made one move last month for Dorian Finney-Smith, have done their due diligence in trade talks so far this season and are open to sending out one or both of their tradable first-round picks for players who would be both short- and long-term fits, Charania reports.

It’s unclear if a difference-maker will be available for the Lakers to attain using their limited assets, especially since a few of their potential salary-matching pieces — including Gabe Vincent and Vanderbilt — presumably have negative trade value.

Still, Charania suggests, given that many of the top seeds in the West this season are young teams with limited playoff experience, there’s a “perception of a wide-open league,” which could spur buyers to be more aggressive.

“Boston, OKC and Cleveland are who they are,” a high-ranking team official told ESPN. “But this is wide open.”