The Los Angeles Lakers have a lot of work to do this offseason and there are plenty of NBA pundits (including ourselves) who are predicting what the team might do and some things the team might want to do.
James Piercey of NBA Analysis Network recently put together three trade packages that he considers “dream” trades for the Los Angeles Lakers. While there is no denying that these trades would be good for the Lakers, it raises the question of how realistic they really are.
In the following pages, we will break down the three proposed trade packages and play a game of fact or fiction to determine if they are possible or not.
Lakers “dream” trade no. 1: Flipping Russell Westbrook for Gordon Hayward and Terry Rozier
The first package sees the Lakers trade Russell Westbrook and a 2027 first-round pick for Gordon Hayward and Terry Rozier. There is some legitimate smoke with a potential Westbrook-to-Charlotte deal as Marc Stein reported that the Hornets are a “team to watch” for a Westbrook trade.
There is a big problem with this trade, though, and it has nothing to do with the Lakers potentially being worried about Gordon Hayward’s health. It has to do with the Hornets’ perspective here as quite frankly, there is no reason for the team to include Rozier in this deal.
The entire point of trading Hayward for the Hornets is to get off of his multi-year deal in exchange for an expiring contract in Westbrook. The team would still have to package a contract (such as Mason Plumlee) to make the deal possible but adding Rozier doesn’t make any sense.
If the Hornets wanted to trade Rozier they could get legitimate assets for him instead of just lumping him into this deal. Charlotte could probably get the exact same return (Westbrook and a first) for just Heyward and Plumlee, so why include Rozier?
This is another example of wishful thinking for the Lakers. While just Hayward and Plumlee for the cost of a first might seem like too much, we have to remember that Westbrook probably has negative trade value at this point in time.
Verdict: Fiction