Los Angeles Lakers: The 3 best moves that Rob Pelinka can make

3. The Los Angeles Lakers trading for Victor Oladipo

Victor Oladipo has always had a soft spot in my heart and I would love to see him on the Los Angeles Lakers. When he is at his best, Oladipo is one of the best two-way players in the entire NBA and the impact that he would have on the Lakers would be tremendous.

Oladipo is not playing at the highest level that we have seen him play before but he is still playing solid basketball and on the Los Angeles Lakers he would be even better. Not only would being the third scoring option help him get better looks, but his defensive identity would fit on Frank Vogel’s team perfectly.

The Lakers would also be acquiring Bird Rights if they did trade for Oladipo. This means that they could go over the cap to retain him after the 2020-21 season, giving the team its “big three” to match the Brooklyn Nets. Oladipo may not be a superstar, but he is a former all-star and All-Defensive First Team member.

And he is only 28 years old.

This seems like such a great fit, so why is it only number 3? The main reason is that it would take trading Talen Horton-Tucker to pull this off. I broke down a potential Oladipo trade package in a previous article, which you can find here, but I will explain the logic of potentially trading THT once more.

THT could get a poison pill offer sheet in free agency, which would essentially price him out of LA or force the Lakers to overpay for what he produces now and lose some other talent. The team is going to want to keep THT around for sure, but they still want to capitalize on LeBron James playing at this level while they can.

IF the Lakers think that THT is going to get that offer sheet and they cannot match it then I could see Rob Pelinka being willing to trade him. It would not go over well right away, but in the long run, it would make sense for Laker fans.

If they could get the deal done without THT then I would rank this higher, but for now, it stands at number three.