Los Angeles Lakers: 3 potential trades to make with the Indiana Pacers
By Jason Reed
2. The Los Angeles Lakers steal Justin Holiday
The Los Angeles Lakers are not going to be able to trade for the other big names on the Indiana Pacers. Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis are off the table, and quite frankly, do not give the Los Angeles Lakers what they need in order to be the best versions of themselves.
Instead, the Lakers can thumb down the rest of the depth chart and land at Justin Holiday as a potential trade target that would make a lot of sense on the Lakers. Holiday too isn’t having a great season this year but none of the Pacers are. The system there with Rick Carlisle just is not working.
The potential of Holiday is much more exciting than his production this season. Holiday has everything it takes to be a really good defensive player in this league and a head coach like Frank Vogel can absolutely make the most of him. Not only does he have the fundamentals of being a good defender, but his size and length are a huge advantage for him on the wing.
He would probably be the fifth scoring option if he was on the floor in the closing five but he can definitely still hold his own. His three-point shot is down this season but the previous two years combined he shot 39.2% on 5.4 attempts per game. With LeBron James feeding him, his shot should improve.
Holiday is exactly the kind of three and D wing that the Los Angeles Lakers need to add. They could throw him into the closing lineup to give the team at least one good defensive wing and if they really want to focus on defense they can throw out Holiday and THT together to guard the perimeter.
The return for Holiday is not great but he is not having a great season in Indiana to raise his value. Ironically enough, Holiday was traded for contracts and two second-round picks before, so this feels like a fair value for him again.