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.
Gabe Vincent is primed to get traded by the Lakers
The Gabe Vincent signing was met with applause by the fanbase but it never really made sense. There were legitimate red flags with Vincent when the Lakers signed him and those red flags are already starting to show early in the season.
There are 173 players in the NBA who have played 100 minutes so far this season. Vincent ranks 171st in points per 36 minutes, racking up a total of 7.6 points per 36. Only Kyle Lowry and Patrick Williams have been worse.
Vincent was never viewed as someone who would sign a three-year, $33 million contract before the 2023 NBA Playoffs began. Vincent got hot in the playoffs, and more power to him, but that shouldn’t have increased his value by as much as it did. If the Chicago Bulls don’t choke in the second play-in game then Vincent probably re-signs with the Miami Heat on a veteran minimum deal.
Instead, he signed a multi-year deal with the Lakers that the team might already be looking to get out of when February rolls around. Thankfully for the Lakers, Vincent’s salary is not the biggest to offset and every other team in the league also saw what he did in the playoffs, so they too may try to bring him in.
Vincent’s contract is also the perfect size to combine with other deals if the Lakers wanted to go after a star. Even if the Lakers are not outright shopping Vincent, they may have to include him in a deal simply to make the money work if they are bringing back a big-name player.
Regardless, it is already clear less than two weeks into the season that Vincent may not last an entire season with the Lakers. That seemed impossible a month ago.
Max Christie is primed to get traded by the Lakers
Fans are going to hate to read this, but there is a very real chance that the Los Angeles Lakers trade Max Christie at some point during the 2023-24 season. It is by no means a guarantee as the team won’t be outright shopping him but it is far more realistic than it seemed three weeks ago.
Christie entered the 2023-24 season as a golden child in the eyes of many fans. Many expected Christie to take a massive leap in his second season after playing well in the NBA Summer League and in the preseason.
Instead, Christie has not even been part of the regular rotation. The second-year guard logged one minute in the team’s first four games and only got consistent playing time in game five as the Lakers were down several rotation players.
It is clear that Darvin Ham does not think Christie is ready to make a difference and that isn’t surprising. He is a second-year former second-round pick that is 20 years old. It is very rare for those players to be legitimate impactful guys in their first season.
But that opens the door for a trade. Like with JHS, Christie may be viewed as an asset for another team and the Lakers might be forced to throw him into a trade as a convincing point. It would certainly pain many Lakers fans but it also makes sense to make this kind of move.
Christie is a free agent after this year and there is no guarantee that the team will re-sign him. His development window simply does not match up with the Lakers’ title window. If Los Angeles isn’t going to re-sign him anyway, might as well throw him into a deal to get a sweeter return.