Grade the Trade: Mock deal has Lakers winning fierce Mitchell sweepstakes

The Los Angeles Lakers were not good enough this season.

That's a bitter pill to swallow for a team with two All-NBA players, one of them arguably the greatest of all time and the other a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate. LeBron James and Anthony Davis are a foundation upon which you can build a contending team. Yet the Lakers' roster this season was not capable of reaching those heights.

It's likewise a bitter pill for a franchise that has won as many titles as any other, with perennial contenders dating back to the start of the league. From Minneapolis to Hollywood, The Logo to Showtime to The Mamba, the Lakers are supposed to be loaded with stars and competing for titles.

Lakers could use some scoring punch

Instead, the Lakers were only able to secure the seventh seed in the Western Conference, going to war with the 15th-ranked offense and managing to win just a single playoff game. As LeBron James further ages he increasingly needs a wingman who can shoulder the offensive creation load and help to juice the Lakers' offense. Anthony Davis is a dynamic play finisher who can get hot and score in bunches, but most of the time he is not creating offense at a high level.

That's the target for the Lakers this summer: add a third star who can score the rock. They have been linked to Trae Young, Dejounte Murray and Kyrie Irving, among others, as potential options to trade for this offseason. They will have access to three first-round picks to offer in a deal and turn their two-man team into a three-man super squad.

The most recent name to be linked to the Lakers: Donovan Mitchell. The Cleveland Cavaliers guard will be just one year away from free agency and looks increasingly unlikely to sign a long-term extension with a Cavaliers team that hasn't been good enough since his arrival.

ESPN's Brian Windhorst, who is likely the national media personality best connected with both LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, reported that the Lakers are among a handful of teams readying their trade package to offer to Cleveland this summer. With the Cavaliers losing to the Boston Celtics in five games, Mitchell and the front office are now left waiting for a tense offseason to arrive.

What would a Donovan Mitchell trade look like? What would the Lakers need to send to Cleveland to make such a deal possible? Let's fire up the trade machine and build a trade for Mitchell that might just work for both sides.