Los Angeles Lakers: Best trade in team history with the Denver Nuggets

The Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets have been trade partners just four times.

In what has become an ongoing series here at Lake Show Life, we are breaking down the best trade that the Los Angeles Lakers have made with every other NBA franchise. Today, we break down the best trade with the Denver Nuggets.

The two sides have only been on the agreeing end of a trade proposal four times. The first trade between the teams was in 1978 with the most recent trade occurring in 2011.

None of the trades are really all that impactful and this definitely is one of the weakest trades of the entire series to this point. However, we are still on our pursuit of the best.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ best ever trade with the Denver Nuggets:

It is actually quite ironic, Jeremy Rucker of Bleacher Report called this trade one of the five-worst trades in Los Angeles Lakers history in an article back in 2015. When you just look at it from the surface level, sure, it can look like a bad trade, but it really was not and is the best trade that the Lakers made with the Nuggets.

That is not to say that it is a great trade, but it definitely is not one of the five worst in franchise history.

Nick Van Exel was absolutely more talented than both Tony Battie and Tyronn Lue but Van Exel overstayed his welcome in Los Angeles and had to be dealt because of various issues. The Lakers had to move on and Derek Fisher emerged and did just fine in replacing Van Exel.

Tony Battie never played for the Lakers and that could be viewed as a failure, that part I understand. However, Rucker cites Lue getting embarrassed by Allen Iverson in the 2001 NBA Finals as he was on the receiving end of the now-infamous stepover crossover.

Sure, that one moment looks pretty bad in a vacuum but overall, Lue did a good job at defending Iverson in that Finals and Phil Jackson almost exclusively put him on AI when he was on the court because his athleticism allowed him to keep up. It is a misconception that Lue got torched that game as he was not in for most of it.

Iverson only had three points in the fourth quarter of that infamous game and eventually took over in overtime. Lue was not perfect in defending Iverson and still did not get that much playing time, but he performed well when the team needed him to.

Lue played three seasons with the Lakers and did not really even play that much, but his defensive impact, albeit in reserve playing time, is enough to carry his name above the rest of the players that the Lakers have acquired from Denver.

Outside of Lue and Battie, the Lakers have received Chukwudiebere Maduabum, Ron Boone (played 88 games), Mark Young and Ollie Mack (played 27 games) from Denver.