Another day and yet another Lakers trade rumor. This time it’s SI’s Sam Amick reporting the 76ers have had talks with the Lakers in regards to dealing Andre Iguodala for Lamar Odom and potentially Ron Artest as well in order to match salaries.
To me this makes no sense at all for the Lakers.
To begin, Iguodala has a deal worth over $40-million to be paid out over the next three seasons. If dealing Odom’s $8-million salary for Iguodala’s $13-million next season makes sense to you then I pray you’re not a CPA. How exactly is that going to help the cap situation going forward with an expiring CBA and an all-but-certain lockout looming?
The next issue is that in order to make this deal work the Lakers would have to give up an additional contract thus the name of Ron Artest has come into play.
Again I ask how this helps the team improve in any way?
Iguodala is an athletic wing that plays solid defense. In that regard he’s ideal for what this team desperately needs. However at his price tag he’s not worth the risk. Not to mention an already thin bench becomes even more so with the league’s best Sixth Man departing.
Odom is a relative bargain while Iguodala is an expensive luxury. In other years you could see Dr. Buss making this type of move but not now. Not with this franchise facing some tough decisions going forward and not with the reality of acquiring Iguodala not being nearly enough to resurrect any title hopes.
I’m afraid this is another one of those situations where Team A (Philadelphia) puts a player on the trading block. Team B (Los Angeles) makes a business call to see what it might take to acquire said player. Then a journalist catches wind of the talks and moves forward with reporting it.
Nothing more to see here. Let’s move on.
I’m sure between now and when the draft gets underway this evening we’ll hear more of these scenarios. Expect to hear plenty of Lamar rumors to persist as he’s about the only player others teams have interest in that the Lakers will make available for trade.