3 trades the Lakers can make around Donovan Mitchell with Knicks, Jazz
By Jason Reed
2. The Los Angeles Lakers get just role players
There is a good chance that the Lakers disagree with my assessment of Julius Randle on the team and it is hard to blame them if Randle does give them cold feet. Randle is coming off of a bad season and while his cap hit might not be bad compared to the rest of the league down the stretch, it still does take away their flexibility.
If the Lakers want to maintain that flexibility then this could be the kind of package that they get in return. Instead of taking on a contract like Randle (or another potentially disposable contract that we will touch on in trade no. 3), they just take on depth players in this trade.
Bojan Bogdanovic is on an expiring contract and while Rose and Fournier are on multi-year deals, they are much easier to move in the future if need be. The Lakers are not locked into those contracts long-term and they still would have some money to spend next summer.
Would the Lakers be able to contend for a championship after this trade? As sad as it is to say, probably not. Anything can happen in basketball and while this raises the floor of the team, I would not say it raises the ceiling all that much.
That is why I would prefer the team take a risk on Randle if they are going to make this trade happen. However, you can’t blame them if they don’t want to turn a one-year problem into a multi-year problem because that could potentially happen.