The Los Angeles Lakers have championship aspirations this season and as a result, the team is not going to be shy in making improvements where they are needed. It won’t be as crazy as last year’s trade deadline but it is almost a guarantee that Los Angeles will tweak its roster near the trade deadline to optimize a championship push.
A team cannot tweak its roster without moving on from players, though. And while there is still a lot of basketball left to be played, there are already several Lakers players who are prime candidates to be moved on from at some point.
Jalen Hood-Schifino is primed to get traded by the Lakers
Jalen Hood-Schifino has not even made his official NBA debut yet for the Los Angeles Lakers but there is a decent chance that he gets traded at some point before the deadline. This is nothing to do with JHS, it has more to do with the timeline of the Lakers.
This is a Lakers team that is angling to win it all this season. Rob Pelinka and the front office are not going to stop short of creating the best team that they physically can for a title run. Unfortunately for JHS, that means moving him.
The Lakers do not have a surplus of draft picks to trade and thus, the player who the team just took with the 17th overall pick becomes an important asset not just for value, but for salary purposes as well.
It is going to take time for JHS to develop into a legitimate rotation player and that just doesn’t line up with the Lakers’ title window. The team should not trade him just for the sake of trading him, but Pelinka definitely won’t be shy to move him.