Aloha,
The eyes of the league are on the Raptors and what they are going to do. Will they blow it up? Or will they look fix their roster. If they decide to blow it up I doubt that Russ and our picks could land multiple high end players. But what if they look to fix their Roster?
If that’s the case perhaps the Lakers could help.
It’s no secret that I love OG Anunoby. It’s also no secret that I love Lonnie Walker. But our biggest need is size on the wing. And the Raptors biggest need is at guard. They literally have no back up point guard playing. I wonder if a package of Lonnie, Nunn, Damien and a protected pick would interest them. While I would hate to lose Lonnie’s 3 point shooting but OG fills a bigger need. Nunn gives them a playable reserve point guard and Jones gives them depth at center which they also lack. They can put Scottie Barnes back at his natural SF position and either play Trent Jr at the starting 2.
The deal is we may lose Lonnie anyway this summer, while OG is only a year older and is under a reasonable contract for a couple more years. I doubt any combination of Beverly and Nunn would be appealing to the Raptors but getting an athletic young player averaging 16 a game and shooting 39% might intrigue them.
Michael, while I agree with most of your assessment of the situation around the team in your post, I don’t want Lonnie and Reaves traded. These are two players I see as keepers. Besides, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. We just have to keep finding ways to make them better and find other talents to complement them. They have shown their worth time and time again. There is no need to fix a problem involving these two players when everything is more than okay in their performances. But that’s just my opinion.
The problem is unless we keep Russ, there is no way we have cap space to re-sign Walker. He will be more expensive than Monk. The other thing adding Lonnie to the trade packages is it means that you can do a non-Russ trade for a player like DeRozan. It’s something the Lakers have to consider. Otherwise, they lose Lonnie for nothing. Reaves has Bird right so it just comes down to Jeanie stepping up or cheaping out.
“He will be more expensive than Monk. The other thing adding Lonnie to the trade packages is it means that you can do a non-Russ trade for a player like DeRozan. It’s something the Lakers have to consider. Otherwise, they lose Lonnie for nothing.”
DeRozan would be a no brainer to me but I would look to other avenues to figure things out without losing Lonnie and Reaves. I may sound greedy but these two players should be kept, including Thomas Bryant.
While I agree with the cost involved in keeping Lonnie, I will be blind to the cost if I were the GM of a storied franchise like the Lakers. I am tired of us losing quality players that happen to come our way due to “cheaping out”. That is not an option for me. Ineptitude isn’t either.