New intel from cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor suggests that the Los Angeles Lakers are talking with the Cleveland Cavaliers about a trade framework that would send De’Andre Hunter to LA for Rui Hachimura and Dalton Knecht.
A third team would need to get involved for the trade to work, as Fedor explained during a new episode of the Wine & Gold Talk podcast.
For the Lakers’ sake, let’s hope no one steps forward to be that third team, because this would be a bad trade for Los Angeles. In fact, fans have reason to wonder what on Earth is going through Rob Pelinka’s head at the moment, if this trade buzz is real.
Trading for De'Andre Hunter wouldn't be a net win for the Lakers
Why exactly is Pelinka interested in taking on Hunter's $24.9 million salary in 2026-27? For weeks, we've been respecting Pelinka's unwillingness to make a big splash before the Feb. 5 deadline to maintain cap flexibility for the coming offseason.
Trading away Hachimura's expiring salary for Hunter's aforementioned cap hit would work directly against that blueprint.
What's more, Hunter isn't going to magically come in and cure the Lakers' defensive issues. He's also shooting a gross 30.9 percent from 3 this season, which would render him nearly useless in a Luka Doncic offense.
If Pelinka is actually considering this trade, he must know a couple of things that we don't: First, that Hunter's outside shooting will experience a revival in LA and return closer to his career mark of 36.5 percent. And second, that Hunter is such a perfect fit with the Lakers that Pelinka wouldn't be able to find a better way to spend $25 million this coming offseason.
If Pelinka feels this way, he's looking at Hunter's experience in Cleveland as an outlier, and he's hoping to get the Atlanta Hawks version of Hunter in a trade.
That's not a wild philosophy to embrace, seeing as Hunter's only played 69 regular-season games with Cleveland and still has a bunch of prime years left, being 28 years old.
Still, it feels completely wrong to blow up the cap space plan for a player of Hunter's caliber. If this were a real needle-mover we were discussing, the conversation would be different.
Does Pelinka already have intel that Giannis Antetokounmpo won't be available this coming summer? It's hard to imagine why Pelinka would be interested in adding $25 million of salary for a player who isn't exactly about to turn the Lakers into an NBA Finals favorite.