Los Angeles Lakers: Best trade in team history with the San Antonio Spurs

The Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs have been trade partners five times.

In an ongoing series here at Lake Show Life, we have been breaking down the best trades that the Los Angeles Lakers have made with every other NBA franchise. Today, we break down the best trade that the team has made with the San Antonio Spurs.

The Lakers and Spurs are Western Conference rivals but that has not stopped the teams from doing business before, as the two sides have agreed to a deal five times.

However, the one caveat is that the Lakers and Spurs have not conducted a trade since 1990 and none of the trades have really been that significant. However, there is one trade that we can pin as the best that the Lakers have made with the Spurs.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ best ever trade with the San Antonio Spurs:

The Los Angeles Lakers traded for veteran big man Mychal Thompson in February of 1987 and it wound up being a great trade for the Lakers. While Thompson was not a star during the Showtime Lakers era, he did win two championships with the team and certainly was an important bench player during his tenure.

Thompson was a much-needed backup big man that not only provided another scoring option off the bench for the Lakers but could guard other great big men as well. Thompson was a really solid defender, especially for a role player.

Thompson only started a combined nines games his first two and a half seasons with the Lakers and put up fairly decent numbers off the bench. Thompson averaged 10.3 points and 5.7 rebounds per game in those first two and a half seasons. That translates to a per-36 minutes stat line of 18.2 points and 8.4 rebounds.

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The Spurs did not get all that in return, either. Brickowski was the best player that the Spurs received in that trade and he ended up playing 219 games in San Antonio and averaged 11.6 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. The numbers were solid for the Spurs, but Thompson was a better fit for the Lakers.

The rest of the players that wound up going to San Antonio as a result of the trade did not wind up being anything special for the team. If they landed a sleeper star with the draft pick then it would have hurt a bit more, but they didn’t.

The Los Angeles Lakers got a solid role player that contributed to two championships for not much in return, in hindsight.