Should the Los Angeles Lakers make this trade for Buddy Hield?
Absolutely not. But there are two questions that we have to answer.
This would not be a good trade for the Lakers to make. While Hield would have been a significantly better option to trade for than Russell Westbrook, that does not mean the Lakers should fork over all of these assets for him now (especially considering the rumored original trade package was just Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell and a first).
Two first-round picks for Hield is a tall order. Hield is probably not worth that much draft capital alone and it would be such a bad look if the Lakers trade all of that with THT to get Hield. THT is the guy that kept the Lakers from trading for Kyle Lowry and is the guy they chose over Alex Caruso. And you now have to package two firsts with him to get a borderline top-50 guy in Hield? Yikes.
Hield would have been great at a third scorer with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. With Russell Westbrook, it is hard to see his fit. The team is already struggling with only having one basketball and they already have several role players who can shoot and don’t play defense.
Quite frankly, the Lakers could get exactly what they are looking for out of Buddy Hield if they just played Malik Monk more!
The second question we have to answer is would the Los Angeles Lakers do this?
Unfortunately, I do not think we can rule that out. This is the same team that traded actual assets for Westbrook when no other team in the league wanted him and if there is no other deal on the table by February 10, I can absolutely see Rob Pelinka making the desperation move.
We have to cross our fingers that this doesn’t happen and if it does it is just going to significantly hurt the future of the team without making this year’s team much better.