Los Angeles Lakers: Why a Jrue Holiday trade makes perfect sense

The potential trade for Jrue Holiday:

The New Orleans Pelicans complete their take over of the Los Angeles Lakers’ young core by adding Kyle Kuzma to his old teammates in New Orleans. The team also gets a veteran sharpshooter in Danny Green that can be used for a playoff push or even as midseason trade bait as well as the Lakers’ pick in this year’s draft.

That pick technically cannot be traded before the draft but we see this all the time in the NBA. The trade can be agreed upon on principle, the Pelicans will tell the Lakers who they want once the 28th picks rolls around and the Lakers will select that player.

Cook is also thrown in there for salary reasons. The Lakers could also toy with the idea of changing the protections on one of the picks that were sent in the Anthony Davis trade. They could remove the protections on a pick, change it from a swap to an outright pick, the possibilities are endless.

The Lakers do this because they absolutely get better with Holiday on the roster and can easily replace Kyle Kuzma by re-signing Markieff Morris and adding Gallinari on an MLE exception.

The Pelicans do this because for one guaranteed year of Holiday they get another young asset to the core, another draft pick and a valuable veteran that they could probably flip for even more future capital at the deadline.

Could other teams best this offer? Yes, but this is right on line with market value for Holiday and with other names also being floated around, such as Victor Oladipo and Bradley Beal, perhaps there are not as many suitors for Holiday.

Regardless, this would be a fair trade for both parties.