Los Angeles Lakers: 3 Players that should be traded this season
3. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
At this point it is hard to believe that Kentavious Caldwell-Pope entered the season as one of the Lakers in the starting lineup. After his brutal start to the season, he quickly was sent to the bench and has lost a ton of minutes to the up-and-coming Josh Hart. The emergence of Hart has made Pope pretty much expendable. Since he is only 25 and has already proven he can be a decent two way player in the league, he still has a good amount of trade value.
Last week Pope had some of his better games he has had this season, in the two games last weekend he finally shot the ball well and went 5-of-11 from beyond the arc. Now might be a good time sell him while he is at least playing better.
There have been rumors swirling around Pope this week, that the Philadelphia 76ers reportedly have interest in trading for him. They already made a big move by adding Jimmy Butler to the mix and they lost a lot of depth with that move, so it is not surprising they have interest in Pope because he can at least be a serviceable role player for them as a three and D guy.
It might be a bad idea for Lakers to trade one of their best three-point shooting threats from last season, but Pope has regressed immensely this season shooting his career-worst 28.2 percent from downtown this season.
If the Lakers could somehow convince the Sixers to part ways with veteran J.J. Reddick who is on a similar one-year deal to Pope for almost the same amount of money, then they should do the deal in a heartbeat. Reddick would be the perfect veteran sharpshooter to add to the Lakers roster, but it there is pretty much no way the 76ers would deal one of their starters for Pope who has been buried on the Lakers bench meaning the Lakers would have to give up another asset to acquire Reddick.
Philly would be way more willing to deal Wilson Chandler who is also on a one-year deal with a comparable $12.8 million contract. However it is unlikely that this deal would interest the Lakers because Pope is much younger and is represented by Klutch Sports so he has a close relationship with LeBron James.