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The Los Angeles Lakers were among the most active teams during the NBA trade deadline, and fans should be optimistic about the moves.
Based on what we saw from Lakers executive Rob Pelinka, he clearly learned some valuable lessons from previous blunders that he and his team made earlier in his tenure running basketball operations.
Pelinka and the front office may have made a critical mistake trading for Russell Westbrook, but they possibly reversed at least some of the damage done to the roster. Here is how they managed to do it:
- Prioritize youth. Jarred Vanderbilt (23), Mo Bamba (24), Rui Hachimura (25), Malik Beasley (26), D’Angelo Russell (26), and Davon Reed (27) are all under 30 years old. This provides a much better future than their roster did last season when they shockingly employed thirteen different players over 30 years old. Westbrook (34) and Patrick Beverley (34) were clearly past their prime, and now the team is much more youthful.
- Space the floor for LeBron and Anthony Davis. Before the trade deadline, only four players in the rotation (minimum: 500 minutes) were shooting better than the league average (35.9 percent) beyond the arc. Bamba (39.8 percent), Russell (39.1 percent), and Beasley (35.9 percent) should help with spacing for James and Davis — who desperately need that from their teammates.
- Don’t give too much power to one agency. Only one of the players (Vanderbilt) that the Lakers traded for at the deadline is represented by Klutch. The other players are signed to CAA, Wasserman, Pay-Lay, Priority, and Octagon. This is a stark contrast considering several players that they signed during the past two offseasons (Kendrick Nunn, Lonnie Walker IV, Troy Brown, Juan Toscano-Anderson) were Klutch clients.
- If you’re not going to re-sign a guy, get an asset. The Lakers have made several bone-headed decisions by letting valuable assets (e.g. Julius Randle in 2018 or Alex Caruso in 2021) leave in free agency without fetching an asset in return. If the front office had no intentions of re-signing these guys, they should have traded them before their contracts expired. This time around, they were able to net draft capital in exchange for Thomas Bryant — who was going to command a larger contract than they were prepared to offer him this summer.
- Protect those picks! Former Lakers executive Mitch Kupchak included protections on his massive trades involving Steve Nash (which worked out big time!) and Dwight Howard. Pelinka hadn’t previously done that, though, and the Lakers royally screwed up by failing to protect their picks when they traded for Anthony Davis. Even though they included a pick to move off Russell Westbrook, the 2027 first-rounder is at least protected if it falls between 1 and 4.
The Lakers (26-31) are five games below .500 and but just two games back for a spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament.
The Tip-Off
NBA content from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
The four-team trade deadline deal that sent James Wiseman to the Pistons was briefly in jeopardy after the Warriors alleged that the Trail Blazers were misleading about the health of Gary Payton II.
Portland reportedly had Payton “gut through” an injury:
“The Athletic’s Jason Quick previously reported that Payton indicated he didn’t want to play for Portland any longer.
Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin said that player safety is “super important” to the organization and they were “super confident” that Payton was healthy, per Sean Highkin.
He added that the team would not have let Payton return to the court if they did not believe he was physically able to play.”
The trade still went through but this is an ugly look if it is indeed true.
One To Watch
(All odds via Tipico.)
Trail Blazers (-135, -2.5) vs. Lakers (+115), O/U 235.5, 10:00 PM ET
LeBron is going to miss this game due to left ankle soreness, but it’ll be fascinating to see how the new additions in Los Angeles fare in this game at the Moda Center in Portland.
Shootaround
—LeBron James was booed at the Super Bowl, so naturally, he put on an imaginary crown
— Josh Hart had a perfect three-word response to entering the Knicks’ locker room for the first time
— Sixers Wire’s Ky Carlin reviews four backup big men Philly should consider on the buyout market
— HoopsHype’s Yossi Gozlan recaps the winners, losers, and trends from the NBA trade deadline
