Friday’s Jazz game will prove that Lakers won Patrick Beverley trade
By Jason Reed
The only trade that the Los Angeles Lakers ended up making during the offseason was a small deal for veteran defensive point guard, Patrick Beverley. Los Angeles traded Talen Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson for Beverley in a move that seemed to be a big upgrade for the team.
The results have not been what Lakers fans were expecting thus far as Beverley has not played very well this season. Some would argue that it is time to give Beverley the same level of scrutiny that Westbrook has been getting for the last six months.
While it admittedly has not been great for Beverley, we also are only seven games into the NBA season and he has still had a positive impact on the defensive end. Any contributions offensively are a bonus and it is too soon to completely give up on the idea of him coming around offensively.
Some Lakers fans may think that Rob Pelinka lost yet another trade with how Beverley has played thus far this season. Those fans will be proven wrong on Friday night as the Lakers host the Utah Jazz for the first matchup between the two teams this season.
Lakers fans will realize that they still got the better end of the trade with the Jazz.
Sure, Patrick Beverley has not been great thus far but it is not like Talen Horton-Tucker is breaking down any barriers in Utah, either. THT has actually been worse thus far for Utah than he was with the Lakers last season and is exhibiting the same problems we saw in LA.
His defense has been good enough but has not been as good as Beverley’s. Offensively, THT has been even worse than Beverley as he is shooting just over 40% from the field and 18.5% from beyond the arc — both career lows.
Based on how he is playing this season, it seems highly unlikely that THT is going to come back to Los Angeles and have some sort of revenge game against the Lakers. Instead, he will be the same ineffective offensive player that we saw last season and the Lakers will exploit that.
Stanley Johnson should not have been included in the trade as his wing presence would have been beneficial to this team but he is not even in the league right now. Utah released him and not a single other NBA team picked him up, showing that Lakers fans may have been overvaluing their own guy just a bit last season.
And even if THT and Beverley are both playing at similar levels of mediocrity, the Lakers still put themselves in a much better situation as it pertains to the cap, turning THT’s two-year contract into just one year of Patrick Beverley.
Rob Pelinka has made a lot of bad moves that have made this team worse. This is not one of them.