The Hawks are listening to offers for Al Horford, but should the Lakers try to make a deal?
The Los Angeles Lakers have made no secrets about the fact that they would like to be sellers at the 2016 NBA Trade Deadline, which is just over two weeks away on Feb. 18. They are looking to move guys like Roy Hibbert, Brandon Bass, Lou Williams, and Nick Young at the deadline to try and create more flexibility with their lineups this year and more cap room for the summer of 2016 in free agency.
The Lakers are also a team looking ahead to that 2016 free agency period as they will have an excess of room under the rising salary cap to try and sign some of the biggest stars on the market to big contracts. However, they may have at least the opportunity to pursue one of those potential big-name targets at the Trade Deadline: Atlanta Hawks center Al Horford.
According to a report from Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports, the Hawks are more than willing to give Horford a max contract this summer as his he will become an unrestricted free agent. However, the Hawks are also willing to listen to trade offers for the big man from teams leading up to the deadline in fear that Horford will leave for a bigger market and not wanting to lose him and get nothing in return.
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Considering the assumed interest of the Lakers in Horford as a free agent in 2016 and now the fact that he could be available at the Trade Deadline, you have to wonder if the Lakers would go from sellers to buyers and try to go after Horford before he ever hits free agency.
In terms of why the Lakers would be interested in acquiring a player they aren’t certain to sign in free agency even if they were to go after him, the essence of it is money. A trade with Atlanta for Horford would send the 29-year-old’s Bird Rights to the Lakers, thus allowing Los Angeles to sign him to a five-year max contract this summer as opposed to a four-year max. At Horford’s age, the length of his next deal is something that will certainly factor into his free agency decision.
Operating under the premise that the Lakers are interested in Horford as a free agent, attempting to make a trade that would acquire his Bird Rights would be the right move. However, the hurdle that the Lakers would need to try and get over is giving Atlanta what they want back in return.
The reason for the Hawks even listening to trade offers for Horford is that they want to secure the future of the organization by getting something in return for the big man rather than him walking and leaving them empty-handed. The problem for the Lakers is that the only center that would make sense in a trade for the $12 million on Horford’s contract this year is Roy Hibbert, a player also with an expiring contract. Subsequently, the Lakers would almost surely have to bring in a third team to get any trade with Atlanta pushed through.
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Any third team that the Lakers would get involved in such a deal would have to have a couple of specific qualifiers. For one, they would need to have a quality center on the roster that is expendable for whatever reason (it’s also be nice if this center had a semi-sizeable contract to make the contracts being moved add up easily). Secondly, they would have to be looking to take on Hibbert’s expiring contract to free up cap-space at the end of this year.
Obviously those are two factors that eliminate a number of teams around the NBA. However, an interesting candidate to get involved as a third team involving the Lakers and Hawks is the Minnesota Timberwolves. With Karl-Anthony Towns and Gorgui Dieng eating up the bulk of the minutes in the young team’s frontcourt, that leaves Nikola Pekovic playing a miniscule role with a big number on the books in Minnesota. Therefore, they have a player under contract until 2018 that they owed roughly $12 million per year who is coming off of the bench and playing sparingly.
Subsequently, a trade that would send Horford to LA, Hibbert to Minnesota, and Pekovic to Atlanta with some assortment of picks involve to appease either Atlanta or Minnesota makes 100 percent sense for everyone involved. There are other potential moves that could be made in the same light, but that’s a quality example of the fact that there is a move that could be made.
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Whether or not the Lakers choose to go after Horford at the NBA Trade Deadline is up in the air, but they should undoubtedly see if they can at least peak the interest of the Hawks in working out a three-team deal. Horford would be an asset for the Lakers’ future and acquiring him before Feb. 18 would put the organization in the best position possible to sign him in 2016 free agency and make him a part of that future.