The Los Angeles Lakers were at a crossroads in the offseason. At virtually the exact same time, two different Lakers rumors began surfacing: one saying that the team was about to trade for Sacramento’s Buddy Hield, and another that said the team would trade for Washington’s Russell Westbrook.
In the end, the Lakers ended up trading for Westbrook instead of Hield in what will go down as a fork in the road moment for the franchise. While trading for Hield would not have guaranteed a ring, it would have guaranteed a much more manageable situation than the current one that exists with Westbrook.
The Lakers made the wrong choice when the Hield trade was right there. Even Kyle Kuzma thought it was a done deal and that he was heading up to Northern California.
According to recent Lakers rumors, the team is trying to right that wrong by trading for Buddy Hield once more.
Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reported that the Los Angeles Lakers offered the Kings a package centered around Buddy Hield and the Kings rejected the offer. It is not surprising that the Kings rejected the Lakers’ first offer as THT does not seem to have much trade value, if any, this year.
This is definitely something that was leaked by someone on the Kings’ side of things to try and leverage into the Lakers trading more assets for Hield. And with how desperate the Lakers seem, it might just work.
This might push the Lakers to offer a trade package that the Kings cannot say no to. While they said no to the initial offer, the Lakers can certainly raise the value. On the following page we are going to break down the trade package that it would take for the Kings to say yes as well as break down whether the Lakers should do it.