5 players the Los Angeles Lakers should have never given up on

5. Ivica Zubac

Not only did the Los Angeles Lakers give up on Ivica Zubac for no reason but they gave up on Ivica Zubac and sent him to the Los Angeles Clippers. While Lakers fans will downplay the LA rivalry until the end of time, it still does sting seeing Zubac be a productive center every night in LA all these years later.

The trade did not make sense at the time and it still does not make sense now. The Lakers traded Zubac to the Clippers for Mike Muscala to add shooting to the roster. Muscala ended up being a disaster for the purple and gold and Zubac instantly continued his strong season with the Clippers.

The Lakers probably did not want to pay Zubac after the 2018-19 season and that is why they traded him but it is not like he got a big contract from the Clippers. Zubac agreed to a four-year, $28 million contract that summer with the Clippers. Definitely affordable for the Lakers.

It just makes no sense to give away a young player for free unless you are getting a surefire rental in return. And to get a surefire rental, you have to actually be a contending basketball team! The Lakers were not that in 2018-19.

At the very least, get future assets of some kind for Zubac. If the team was not going to get that then it does not hurt to keep him. They can try and work out a contract in the offseason and even if they ended up paying him a bit more than they want, his contract would’ve been perfect to throw into the Anthony Davis deal instead of, say, Josh Hart.

Clippers gearing up to steal yet another much-valued Lakers target

The Los Angeles Clippers have stolen valuable players from the Los Angeles Lakers in the past and they look to be doing so yet again.

Even if Zubac was not a long-term Laker the team would have gotten far more value out of him by simply doing the easy thing and not trading him.