Los Angeles Lakers: 3 small forward trade candidates

With the trade deadline fast approaching, here are the three small forwards the Los Angeles Lakers should consider trading for.

With less than a month to go before we reach the Feb. 6 trade deadline, the rumor mill around the Los Angeles Lakers and NBA has started to ramp up a bit. The biggest piece of news is that the Detroit Pistons are looking to move on from former All-Star Andre Drummond, with the Atlanta Hawks being one of the more interested teams in acquiring him.

For the Los Angeles Lakers, there have been rumblings about them making a trade before the deadline, but nothing concrete has come out thus far. However, there are still some holes in this team that GM Rob Pelinka would more than likely want to address before heading into the postseason.

In the last trade article, we discussed potential shooting guards the Lakers could trade for, with the idea that they could bolster their secondary playmaking and shot creation.

In this piece, we’re going to be looking at upgrading the small forward depth on this roster, which would give LeBron James a true backup at his position, and potentially add more wing defense.

As previously mentioned, the Lakers don’t have a ton of assets to work with, as they can’t trade a first-round pick until at least 2026, and a majority of their contracts are around the $2 million range.

However, the team still has talented young players in Kyle Kuzma and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and DeMarcus Cousins‘ $1.75 million contract in what is ostensibly dead salary given the fact he most likely isn’t going to play again this year.