Lakers: The problem with Stephen A. Smith’s Anthony Davis trade request

The Los Angeles Lakers did not make any trades at the NBA trade deadline and while the current focus is on the rest of this season, the Lakers are going to look to undergo wholesale changes in the offseason to improve for the 2022-23 season.

The Lakers have to be aggressive in the offseason with LeBron James on the roster and the title window with him shrinking. That aggressiveness will be turned up a notch after seeing how disappointing this season has been for the team.

Some NBA pundits think that the Lakers should be aggressive to the point where they trade one of their superstars. That NBA pundit is Stephen A. Smith, who recently pounded the table for the Lakers trading Anthony Davis this offseason.

To be fair, some of Smith’s logic does make sense. It is completely justifiable to have question marks on Davis being the future of the team with how often he gets banged up. Plus, if the team was ever going to consider trading him, it would make sense to do it while his value is still high.

Typically these kinds of requests are so ridiculous that they don’t even warrant an article. However, Smith’s logic at least makes sense. While most fans disagree and rightfully so, there is a portion of the fanbase that has been asking for Davis to be traded this season.

Even if the Lakers wanted to, though, they would not be able to trade Anthony Davis.

Trading Anthony Davis in the offseason is simply unrealistic and it is not for the reasons that you would think. It is not because Davis is an irreplaceable star because the Lakers could replace him with a more durable star that could win next to LeBron James… in a perfect world.

This is not a perfect world, though, and there would not be a true way for the Lakers to improve their title chances by trading Davis.

First of all, Russell Westbrook is still going to be under contract and it does not matter if the team is able to trade Anthony Davis for Kevin Durant (obviously not happening), the Lakers are not going to be able to make a title run with Westbrook disrupting things and hurting the team’s chances to build depth.

Second, there is not a superstar for superstar swap that makes sense for LA. The Lakers are not going to be able to turn AD into a better superstar like the 76ers did when trading Ben Simmons for James Harden.

The same injury concerns that the Lakers might potentially have with Davis’ health will also be concerns for whichever team wants to trade for him. The best-case scenario for the Lakers would be an AD for Damian Lillard swap and quite frankly, that wouldn’t work out for LA.

Lillard also has durability concerns and he is starting to regress. Add in the fact that the Lakers would have two “superstar” point guards and it would be weird roster construction.

And LA is obviously not going to trade AD for a package of young players and picks. Even if there are durability concerns, it makes absolutely no sense to trade him for a package like the Rockets got for James Harden when you still have LeBron James on the roster.