Los Angeles Lakers: The best trade ever with the Houston Rockets

The Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets have been trade partners five 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 franchise in the NBA. Today, we break down the best trade made with the Houston Rockets.

The Lakers and Rockets have only been trade partners five times in their long histories, all of which surprisingly coming in the 2010s. Prior to 2010, despite so many intertwined years in the league, the Lakers and Rockets did not do business.

There obviously has not been a huge trade that the Lakers have made with Houston that immediately jumps off the page but there are some solid ones. The best might be a bit underwhelming, but hey, we can only work with what we have.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ best ever trade with the Houston Rockets:

This was such as easy trade to pick as the Lakers got two solid players essentially from the Houston Rockets for nothing. Granted, neither Jeremy Lin nor Larry Nance Jr. had significant impacts on the Los Angeles Lakers, but they were solid players nonetheless.

The Lakers benefitted here from the Houston Rockets wanting to free up cap space and Los Angeles was more than willing to take on the remaining season of Lin’s contract. Thus, the Rockets essentially paid a first-round pick, which turned into Nance, just to get rid of Lin.

The Rockets also traded a protected second-round pick as part of the original framework for the deal but that pick was never sent to Los Angeles because of the protections.

Sergei Lishouk was drafted in 2004 and never stepped foot in the NBA, primarily playing professional basketball in Europe. The Rockets knew that — it was never about Lishouk, it was just about Lin.

It makes it better that the Los Angeles Lakers continued their trend of selecting really solid players in the late first and second round and selected Nance, who became one of the few highlights for the Lakers during the dark years.

Nance was then part of the trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017 that essentially freed up the salary cap space to sign LeBron James that impending summer. It was not the best trade in team history with the Cavaliers, but it definitely was a solid one that is worth mentioning.

That is the biggest thing that Nance contributed to the Lakers. Yes, he was a solid player and so was Lin for a year, but eventually getting LeBron James by having Nance to shop to the Cavs makes this a massive win alone.