Last summer the Los Angeles Lakers made the worst trade the team could have possibly made by sending out legitimate NBA assets for Russell Westbrook. The Westbrook experiment quickly blew up in the team’s face and now the Lakers are looking to move on from the former MVP, despite how much Darvin Ham talks him up.
Prior to trading for Westbrook last season, there was legitimate speculation that the team was going to trade for Sacramento Kings guard Buddy Hield. Even Kyle Kuzma thought he was being traded to the Kings. That is how close it was.
With Hield now on a new team, the Lakers are once again in the market for him. ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reported that the Lakers and Indiana Pacers have re-engaged in trade talks for Hield while the Kyrie Irving trade situation stalls.
Typically there is a common framework that two teams will build around but in this instance, the Lakers and Pacers could get creative and work out a slew of potential packages.
Here are 3 potential trade packages to bring Buddy Hield to the Los Angeles Lakers:
1. The basic Russell Westbrook salary dump
The first potential package that the two teams could work out is a simple Russell Westbrook salary dump. Indiana has no reason to try and contend this season and is going to want to free up the money that the team owes Hield next season.
Thus, the Pacers can take on Westbrook and promptly buy him out while also getting a future first-round pick that could end up very valuable if the Lakers do not turn it around. There is a chance that Indiana would also ask for another pick swap and if the Lakers get really desperate they might say yes.
However, this is fair value as Hield’s contract is not the best (but better than Westbrook’s) and Turner doesn’t really have much trade value by himself. The Pacers have been shopping him for years and nothing has come of it.
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.
3. Building a package around Talen Horton-Tucker and Kendrick Nunn
There is the chance that Indiana, despite being a tanking team next season, doesn’t want to simply be part of a salary dump. Instead, Indiana could target the few assets that the Lakers have for a potential Hield trade.
This could fit the timeline of the team more as they would get another young player in Talen Horton-Tucker, an asset they can flip in the deadline in Kendrick Nunn and they would not have to also trade Myles Turner.
While Turner does not seem to have much trade value by himself, the Pacers could let him do his thing to flip him to a contender like the Nets could try to do. The only problem there is Indiana shouldn’t want to win games.
There is also no chance that the Lakers would trade an unprotected first in this Hield trade. If the team is going to trade that first, it is going to be to get off of Russell Westbrook’s contract. No other team is offering a first-round pick for Hield (most likely), so they might even be able to do this package with future seconds.
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Of the three packages, this seems like the most unlikely as Indiana would probably just be better getting an unprotected first and committing to the tank. However, if the Lakers can work out a different Kyrie deal on top of this it would not be the worst thing in the world.