RJ Barrett extension cements this Russell Westbrook trade for the Lakers
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers turned the page on the Kyrie Irving pursuit and quickly made a trade for another point guard, adding Patrick Beverley to the fold. Trading for Beverley seemingly signaled that the team was preparing to move Russell Westbrook — both because Beverley is also a point guard and because Westbrook and Beverley are not fans of each other.
There are not many options for the Lakers and the trade that really picked up steam was LA acting as the third team in a Donovan Mitchell blockbuster. Utah Jazz President Danny Ainge reportedly covets the Lakers’ two future first-round picks, with NBA insider Marc Stein reporting that LA could be the third team for that reason.
However, those trade waters became muddied on Monday night as ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that RJ Barrett and the New York Knicks were finalizing a four-year rookie extension worth up to $120 million.
According to the Woj report, Barrett has been discussed in trade packages for Mitchell and the two sides are currently not discussing a Mitchell trade; although there is still an open door for the two sides to re-engage in conversations.
This extension makes it much harder for a trade to happen. If Utah were to trade for Barrett the poison pill provision would kick in, meaning that Barrett’s average salary across his extension (not his salary this year) would be used for monetary reasons in the trade.
Thus, instead of Barrett being a rookie contract that can be thrown in with other big contracts, he now is going to account for much more and the Jazz can only take on so much money in return. According to Woj, only one of the 179 players who have received a poison pill provision have been traded.
This removes the Los Angeles Lakers from the Donovan Mitchell trade discussion.
Not only is a trade less likely now, but there is no reason to include the Lakers. The entire point of including LA in the trade was so that they could take on potential multi-year contracts (like Julius Randle or Evan Fournier) as the Jazz have no use for those as a rebuilding team.
With Barrett now being worth more money-wise in the trade, New York does not need to even attach these big contracts. They can include players like Cam Reddish, Obi Toppin and/or Immanuel Quickley to make it work money-wise.
Thus, this cements one possible Russell Westbrook trade for the Los Angeles Lakers: the Indiana Pacers trade. This trade would see Westbrook and two first-round picks sent to Indiana for Myles Turner and Buddy Hield.
The hope is that Indiana would accept this deal and if so, the Lakers should jump all over it, regardless of the two first-round picks. LA has more first-round picks in the near future than advertised the combo of Hield and Turner would fit so nicely in this starting five.
Now the Lakers don’t have the leverage of a possible three-team trade to get Indiana to take less, so there really is no reason for Rob Pelinka and co. to continue delaying the inevitable.