Los Angeles Lakers: 5 Trade Candidates For The NBA Trade Deadline
By Jacob Rude
As the NBA trade deadline approaches, the Los Angeles Lakers need to be busy selling off their assets for either prospects, draft picks, or a potential young piece going forward. We look at five candidates for the Lakers to trade for.
The Los Angeles Lakers are a bad basketball team. That should surprise no one. What they aren’t is a team completely full of bad players. Despite their 12-34 record, the Lakers have some desirable players on their roster that should be sold off to both maximize their value and the amount of losses the Lakers can pile up in the second half of the season to ensure they keep their draft pick.
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A player like Jordan Hill, who currently is 13th in the league in offensive rebounds and 19th in the league in total rebounds, can be seen as a vital piece for a contending team to make a push into the playoffs. And with the possibility of his contract expiring this summer, his value increases that much more.
Or you have a player like Ed Davis, who is 11th in offensive rebound percentage, 18th in block percentage, and 7th in offensive rating. His contract is much smaller which makes him much more attractive as a cheaper (and probably better right now) version of Jordan Hill.
Mix in players like Jeremy Lin, Wayne Ellington, or even Steve Nash‘s expiring contract as pieces that could net the Lakers at least a low-level asset like a second round pick or a risky prospect and the Lakers have lots of moves they can (and need) to make heading into the final weeks before the trade deadline.
Let’s take a look at some of the players the Lakers could be targeting before February 19.