5 Lakers who are expendable, 2 who LA can't afford to trade

Lakers can afford to trade Gabe Vincent

Gabe Vincent has played all of four games with the Los Angeles Lakers this season and in those four games he did not look great. Granted, that is an extremely small sample size and we cannot make conclusions on someone based on 5% of the season.

However, if anything, those four games should have been a warning sign about what fans should have already been worried about when Vincent first signed. Vincent had troubling signs when he signed in the summer that the Lake Show seemingly overlooked.

Vincent had several years' worth of mediocre play with subpar shooting and average-at-best defense. Yet the Lakers looked past all of that because Vincent was really solid for the Miami Heat in the team's miracle playoff run. While it is impossible to deny Vincent's strong play in the NBA Playoffs, it is also fair to say that he would have been a veteran minimum signing if the Chicago Bulls hadn't blown a lead in the Play-In Tournament.

Now the Lakers are locked into three years of Vincent. The price is not astronomical, but he is still making more than he should be making based on his actual talent level.

If the Lakers have the opportunity to package him in a trade, thus getting off of the last two years of his contract, the team should not even hesitate to make the deal. Not only is Vincent expendable, but it would help the team long-term if he was traded.