Los Angeles Lakers: Best trade in team history with the Atlanta Hawks

The Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Hawks have been trade partners nine times.

In Lake Show Life’s latest new article series, we are going to be breaking down the best trade in Los Angeles Lakers‘ history with all other 29 NBA teams, starting with the Atlanta Hawks.

The Lakers and Hawks have been trade partners nine times, via Basketball-Reference’s trade partners tool. The last time that the two parties conducted a trade was all the way back in 1986, when the Lakers traded Mike McGee and Ken Barlow for Billy Thompson.

That is not the best trade that the Los Angeles Lakers have ever made with the Atlanta Hawks, even though the trade history between the two teams has not been that spectacular.

The best Los Angeles Lakers trade with the Atlanta Hawks:

This trade took place all the way back on February 16, 1958, when the Lakers were still in the Land of Lakes, Minneapolis, and the Hawks were in the Gateway to the West, St. Louis.

The Lakers drafted Boushka in the third round of the 1955 NBA Draft and while he was a member of the 1956 Men’s Basketball Olympic team (winning a gold medal for the United States), he never appeared in a game for the Lakers when he was eventually traded.

He never appeared in a game for the Hawks, either, despite being a hometown player from Saint Louis University.

The same can be said for Terry Rand as well. Rand was drafted by the Lakers in the second round of the 1956 NBA Draft but never appeared for the Lakers before being traded. He instead played in the National Industrial Basketball League, where he was a standout player.

Being traded to the Hawks did not lure Rand into the NBA, as he continued to play in the NIBL until 1961. The Hawks got literally nothing out of this trade while the Lakers got an all-star player in Selvy.

Selvy finished out the season with the Lakers before signing with the New York Knicks the following season. He played a season there, was waived and signed by the Syracuse Nationals, and then was purchased again by the Lakers halfway through that season.

Selvy finished the season with the Lakers and transitioned with the team to Los Angeles, playing another four years with the Lakers while being named an all-star during the 1961-62 season. Selvy played 64.4 percent of his games with the Lakers, averaging 10.3 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game.

You could make the case that the Anthony Davis trade could be on here as that trade “technically” was a three-team trade as the Pelicans agreed to send the Lakers’ fourth overall pick to Atlanta before it was made official. That is why DeAndre Hunter was drafted by the Lakers, for the Hawks.

However, that was a trade between the Pelicans and Lakers that the Pelicans then turned around and flipped for more assets, not a trade between the Lakers and Hawks.

Overall, though, the trade history between the Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Hawks is pretty non-substantial. That is obvious by the fact that the best trade between the two teams occurred over 60 years ago for a player that most current Laker fans were not alive to watch.