Los Angeles Lakers: Five point guard trade candidates
By Ethan Temkin
Even with the trade deadline way off in the future, it’s never too early for the Los Angeles Lakers to start thinking about potential trade candidates.
This is especially for a position that the Los Angeles Lakers should be looking to make an improvement on; the point guard. Alex Caruso has carved out a role for himself in the rotation but he’s best utilized as a secondary ball-handler at this stage in his career. Quinn Cook plays more like an undersized shooting guard rather than a true point, so he’s not a viable option either.
With the free-agent market currently less than stellar, the Lakers should consider turning to the trade market to make an improvement at the point guard position. There are both pros and cons of turning to the trade market.
The pros being that the Lakers are at max capacity when it comes to their roster, so signing a player in free agency would mean waiving someone already on the team, which isn’t ideal as the players currently on the team are far better than the ones available in free agency.
The cons of turning to the trade market are that the Lakers have very little in the way of trade capital at the moment. The Anthony Davis trade saw the team relinquishing most of their trade-able first-round picks for the foreseeable future. When it comes to finding matching salaries, that is an even harder task, given the fact that most of the team is either signed to cheap, close to minimum-scale contracts, or near-max deals.
In addition, the most intriguing trade candidates the Lakers have at their disposal in terms of salary matching and skillset were signed this offseason, meaning that they can’t be moved until December 15th, at the earliest. With all of that out of the way, let’s get down to business.