Lakers Free Agency: Jose Calderon Trade Kills Two Birds With One Stone
By Eric Yee
The Los Angeles Lakers helped facilitate the Dwyane Wade to Chicago deal, when they acquired former New York Knick, Jose Calderon from the Bulls on Wednesday
The landscape of the NBA is still feeling the aftershocks following Kevin Durant‘s decision to head to California, with Dwyane Wade recently agreeing to terms with his hometown Chicago Bulls. Ironically, it may be the Lakers who got the biggest steal following Wednesday night’s free agency debacle.
Similar to what the Golden State Warriors had to do to acquire KD, Chicago also had to unload salary in order to sign Wade and the beneficiary of that was definitely Mitch Kupchak and the Lakers.
Chicago has traded guard Jose Calderon to the Los Angeles Lakers, league sources tell @TheVertical.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 7, 2016
Unlike the team who helped the Warriors, in this case the Mavericks, the Lakers fully took advantage of the Bulls’ precarious position making sure to milk every drop they could get before relinquishing control and helping them out.
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Apparently shaken after being spurned by multiple free agents, the Mavs panicked when trading for Andrew Bogut, reportedly even giving up a second round pick in exchange for helping the Warriors clear cap space for KD. What…?
Unless, Mark Cuban knows something we don’t know, or is in on the conspiracy that Durant is going to DeAndre Jordan the Warriors, the move makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
The Lakers on the other contrary man handled the Bulls forcing them to give the team two future second round picks before agreeing to take Calderon off their books. In yet another extraordinary move by Kupchak and the front office, the Lakers killed two birds with one stone: acquiring picks, but more importantly, the back up point guard they desperately desired all for a measly $7 million.
All hail Kupchak, King of Catan.
As many on the internet have mentioned, one of these picks could be packaged with Nick Young in a similar deal to the one the Lakers received in order to move his drama elsewhere.
Calderon may not be the star fans were hoping for when entering this free agency period armed with expectations higher than the moon but he’s shown he is more than capable of conducting an offense even in the starting capacity.
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It’s not every day that you get to seriously bamboozle your trade partner and the Lakers did just that on Wednesday night. Thanks, Dwyane! #InMitchWeTrust