Los Angeles Lakers: 3 trade packages to land Buddy Hield

2. Los Angeles Lakers trade for Buddy Hield AND Kyrie Irving

There is actually some smoke to this fire as McMenamin also said on ‘The Lowe Post‘ that the Lakers are potentially interested in trading for Buddy Hield and/or Eric Gordon on top of trading for Kyrie Irving.

This trade follows a very similar framework as the previous Russell Westbrook salary dump but includes the Nets to get Kyrie to LA. In doing this, the Lakers would have to send an extra first-round pick but would get two players instead of one.

As far as the Pacers are concerned, the return is pretty much exactly the same as it would have been if they just did business with the Lakers alone. The only drawback is that the pick is two years later.

To make this a bit more enticing for the Pacers rather than just doing a deal straight up, the Nets can send some cash considerations to Indiana to help offset some of Westbrook’s buyout. Brooklyn is saving $8.6 million against the tax (which has massive luxury tax implications), so they can send a small amount of cash to Indiana to make it work.

Regardless, this is not the absolute best return for the Nets in terms of established players but they are not going to get established players anyway. Getting a future first, a young player to mold or eventually trade in THT and another asset in Turner is not a bad thing.

Heck, if Brooklyn plays their cards right they can give the keys over to Turner, let him play great basketball as a floor-spacing big next to Ben Simmons, and flip him to a playoff team for a first-round pick next year. That pick will be in the 20s, but it is yet another asset that is essentially coming from Kyrie.

This deal is possible without the Lakers attaching THT but that is something the Lakers would likely push for. This deal as currently constructed sees the Lakers take on less than $800,000 in new salary. Without THT attached LA is taking on over $11 million.