Should the Lakers be interested in bringing Dennis Schroder back?

The Los Angeles Lakers are trying to make some kind of move at the NBA trade deadline to improve the team. Right now, it appears that the team won’t even get out of the Play-In Tournament but with the right moves, and LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the Lakers could get hot down the stretch.

There has been a myriad of suggested trade partners for the Lakers this season and a potential new partner may have just emerged.

The Boston Celtics are reportedly interested in trading Dennis Schroder before the NBA trade deadline and while things did not go well the first time in LA, the Lakers have brought several former players back this season. If the team can improve for a small cost then it should look to do so, regardless of the player’s past with the team. That raises the question:

Should the Los Angeles Lakers be interested in trading for Dennis Schroder?

There are two answers to this question. Simply put, yes, the Los Angeles Lakers should be interested in adding Dennis Schroder this season. Kendrick Nunn has not played at all this season and the team can essentially swap out his contract for Schroder’s as they both were signed with the Taxpayer’s MLE.

As disappointing as Schroder was at times last season, I would rather see him on the Lakers than continually see updates about Nunn not playing.

In theory, the Boston Celtics would be willing to flip half a season for a year and a half of a younger point guard in Nunn and a second-round pick. However, the problem is that the Celtics are being cheap like the Lakers were in the offseason with Alex Caruso. Boston is looking to trade for Schroder to free up his salary, not to get an asset in return.

That is a problem for the Lakers. The Lakers have a trade exception but do not have enough to take on Schroder’s contract. The only realistic way to do this would be to loop a third team in the deal that has a trade exception that can take a contract. For example, the Chicago Bulls can come in and take Nunn off of the Lakers, with Schroder going to LA and a second-round pick going to Boston.

The Bulls do need backcourt help with all of their injuries.

That brings up the second question, though. Is the Los Angeles Lakers trading for Dennis Schroder likely? The answer to that question is no. Why would the Bulls (or any team that can afford it, for that matter) take on Nunn’s contract? It would be way better for Chicago to simply trade for Dennis Schroder because he can actually play on the team.

The only way that it actually makes sense is to loop in a third team that doesn’t care about the player and just wants to be included for an asset, like the Oklahoma City Thunder. But then LA would have two send two second-round picks, one to Boston for Schroder and one to OKC to take on Nunn’s contract.

I would not do that. While second-round picks are not very valuable, I would rather just take the chance that Nunn comes back healthy rather than trading two second-round picks. One is fine. Not two.

The team might be able to trade for other former Lakers. It is not going to be able to trade for Dennis Schroder.