5 THINGS

Like an old timey spaghetti western complete with reverb boot steps we’re all stuck in the middle of a gunslinger draw with no end in sight. We got ourselves a whole slew of gunslingers, hand on the pistol, nobody blinking. Soon as they do, guns will come loose and the iron will fly. But for now…dead-eyed stares, eye’s watering from the holding them open. Who is going to blink first?

1. Gunslinger #1 (aka the Brooklyn Nets): Much has been said, written, and opinionated about what the Nets will do. With the first real clarity on the situation since the Durant trade request put the entire summer into topsy-turvyville, that being that Durant no longer has faith in either coach Steve Nash (a departure from his comments as early as last April) or GM Sean Marks. Frankly that’s astounding to hear. He has no issues with fair-weather teammate Kyrie Irving who misses games no whims and in the name of a personal crusade he doesn’t have much vested in? Nope, but the coach he voted in confidence for in his exit interview and the GM who bent over backwards to accommodate him gotta go. When the news that a weekend get together with Durant and Nets owner Joe Tsai came out I was thinking it would be either to expand the teams he’d be willing to be traded for or to recant his demand altogether. So when the news came out was something that probably ought to have been included in his first “trade me” meeting…well, to put it mildly, I was amused. Durant ain’t blinking: Nash and Marks need to go or…what? Will he sit out a season, not collect a paycheck and fume for the next four years? I don’t think so, I think he fumes and plays. Honestly, who knows and, really, who cares except that it affects gunslinger #2. My working theory is the Nets fire Nash and Marks
2. Gunslinger #2 (aka The Los Angeles Lakers): The Lakers need to improve the roster this summer. The moves they have made to date fall well short of that. We drafted a guy who can’t shoot, signed a young guy with our MLE that can’t shoot and brought in some centers one of whom used to be able to shoot but we’ll see. Not surprisingly, when the date finally arrived that LeBron James could sign or at least speak openly about an extension, that date came and went. Followed somewhat quickly by a “productive” meeting that resulted in no public information or contract extension news of any kind. Suffice to say that without any actual information to go on, LeBron isn’t happy with a roster he has in some way signed off on up until the end of last season. Now he wants changes, changes that will make future moves by the Lakers nigh impossible. While I can appreciate his personal position on the Lakers 2027 and 2029 draft picks (which if traded this season means we won’t have another 1st round draft pick to trade until the summer of 2024 unless it’s a draft day deal) we need at least one of them moving forward. 1st round draft picks are the grease that makes trades for below-market players possible. It’s what makes trading an expensive player into another team’s cap space possible. We have very little grease left and pick swaps don’t do it. Those are the sweetener that goes along with the actual pick. Second round draft picks definitely don’t get it done, doesn’t matter how many you trade. To my knowledge there are no rules governing how many 2nd rounders can be shipped out which should give you an idea of what their NBA market value is. There are likely three deals sitting in front of The King from here on out: a 1 year extension for the max, a 1+1 (PO on year 2) for the max, and a 2 year extension for the max. Those will be on the table until one is signed or LeBron’s current deal expires and he is an unrestricted free agent. My guess is LeBron has Rob’s word these deals will be available barring catastrophic injury…maybe even in that event, as well. That they have assured LeBron they will do any reasonable deal that comes their way. LeBron ain’t blinking, barring his concerns about suffering a major injury this season he has a deal until next summer and likely prioritizes freedom over anything else if this season goes sideways.
3. Gunslinger #3 (aka Jeannie Buss): You might have thought this would go under the Lakers. I see it a bit differently as I am of the opinion that Jeannie has clipped Rob’s wings a bit this summer. I have no doubt that Rob would have sent out any and all draft picks to make a deal happen because, well, that’s about all Rob does. He is amazing at wasting draft assets on players whose services we do not retain. I would imagine Jeannie has had enough of that if I have. It’s her money, after all. There are two things Jeannie has the option of blinking on. First is the overall future of the Lakers and she has made it clear that this is a major priority for her. I’m sure that she, like the rest of us, is aware that we have draft picks we can use in either 2024 or 2025 (NOLA’s choice) and again in 2026 (currently kind of held hostage by said NOLA) and 2028 (not able to be traded along with either 2027 or 2029 because of the Stepien rule). that’s not the point, though. The point is holding onto those picks gives you a better chance of making a deal any time between now and the summer of either 2024 (when we can trade the 2031 draft pick, 2030 would be out unless we still have 2029 in our pocket, again Stepien rule). I’m also sure she knows that any pick we have can be used on a draft day deal because, technically, that’s the day it’s being used. Just can’t be used after draft day or during the regular season. The second thing Jeannie will eventually have to decide if she’ll blink on is a more expensive prospect: paying Russ not to play. In theory the Lakers could tell Russ he’s not going to play…but we’ll still pay you! If you ask me there is no way in Hell the same owner who balked at paying Jared Dudley to basically be a coach in a players uniform will pay Russell Westbrook $47 million dollars to stay home to Netflix and chill. She will never, ever, ever, never, never, ever gonna blink on that. If a dude making the veteran minimum, whose contributions were valued by both coaches and players, irked her than this beyond reality. It will not happen. She’ll blink on the draft picks before she blinks on that and I don’t think she blinks on those, either. The future of the franchise is as important to her as the present. She knows the Lakers will endure far beyond LeBron James.
4. Gunslinger #4 (aka Russell Westbrook): You might think “Jamie, Russ opted in…what else can he do?” The answer my friend is something that has about the same chance as Jeannie blinking on telling him to stay home and that’s change his approach. To his credit, and it could all just be PR fluff mind you, Russ has been present this summer. He was present at coach Ham’s into presser. He was present at summer league. He’s been working out at the team facility. He seems to be as all in as Russ can be on next season. Does that portend a different ;looking Russell Westbrook? That’s a hard thing to say. He’s an established vet who has made a amrk playing and acting a certain way, to think that will all change just because coach ham said it should is hard to imagine. Still, in my opinion, this is the thing the most likely to change…kinda sort of. If Russ can do one thing better next season that could improve our fortunes it would be his finishing around the rim. I don’t need him to transform into Steph, I don’t need him to become Michael Cooper 2.0. I just want to see him make more layups and dunks. That’s it. I expect turnovers from high usage players, I would like to see fewer from many players including LeBron and AD. The not finishing at the rim is death, though. It kills fast breaks. It kills rallies. It kills joy. It needs to stop. Russ needs to make layups and I think he’ll be better next season. I think he blinks on that one.
5. Gunslinger #5 (aka the Indiana Pacers): Bear with me here. They’re on this list not because they’re under the gun in any meaningful way, they have a set roster, cap space to spare, and all of their and other teams draft picks. I have them here because they have the 2 players I think the Lakers need to move on more aggressively than they seem to have shown an inclination to. Myles Turner and Buddy Heild represent fixes to 2 major areas of weakness: defense and shooting. The Lakers really need to figure out how to get Indy to blink on a deal for those 2 players. Brooklyn isn’t going to come to terms with anything quickly. The Lakers need to do a couple of things to make that more likely. First publicly end any and all pursuit of Kyrie Irving. Walk away from that dumpster fire and focus in on Indy. Second make an offer for Turner, Buddy, 2027 1st rounder, 2028 & 2029 pick swap and however many 2nd rounders it takes to get a deal done. Do whatever it takes to save face on that second first rounder which they have sworn is off the table all spring and summer long. Add whatever sweeteners are needed and also say that this deal has an expiration of one week prior to training camp opening and we won’t be trading Russ until February. There will be better deals for Russ at that time, the best deals possible, really. However, it makes more sense for the Lakers to do the best they can to go into the season with the roster they like more. I’m not sure Indy blinks on that deal but I sure hope Rob tries.

All in all I still think the following most likely to be: Russ is on the team until around the trading deadline, Rob will then make LakerTom’s dreams come true and finally execute an in-season trade, and that the Lakers hold onto both 1st rounders…for now. We’ll see, as the KD news shows us there is no sport wackier than the NBA where literally anything can happen.

We are at the point in the offseason where summer league is done and teams are, well, they’re all just sitting there. Most player movement and big deals happen up to or during summer league. Not a hard rule and of course trades or signings are likely to continue all the way until camp starts but the generally the big splashes and names have already been handled at this point. Not this season. Since Mongo said he was going fishing we’re going with that theme for this 5er.

1. Seismic shifts making waves. I wrote at the beginning of the Lakers summer while the playoffs were all but done (maybe just after, hard to recall…) that it would take some seismic shifts in the NBA to shake a Russell Westbrook trade loose. Well, that happened alright. After Kyrie opted into his deal everyone thought the Nets were set to start building out the roster-oh wait Kevin Durant asked for a trade. Boom. Then the Jazz traded Gobert to Minny for a King’s ransom. Blammo. Then they put Donovan Mitchell sorta kinda maybe on the trading block for a double King’s ransom. Kablooey. Those were the kinds of things I thought would have to happen for a Russ trade to have a sliver of hope.
2. Bait’s in the water but nothing’s biting. Durant is till a Net. So is Kyrie. Mitchell’s market is robust but the ask is pretty danged high (as it should be a star on the rise who is only 25). All these bombs dropped but very little shook loose. In fact the opposite happened, everything kind of just froze up and locked in place. Utah is asking for 7 (!) first round draft picks for Spyda. The Nets want a Gobert-esque haul for KD. They’re holding out hope of squeezing two 1st rounders from LA to lose Kyrie…maybe…or they want to keep him, hard to tell. Teams around the league have started filling out the back end of their rosters, except the Spurs who can afford to wait. There are a grip of un-signed free agents of impact and with summer league over there will likely be a lull of a couple weeks before things maybe heat up again prior to camp starting.
3. Big Fish still out there. Russell is still a Laker. Listen to Darvin Ham and he seems intent on making it work. Like many of the Laker statements these days that should come with a “well what else is he supposed to say?” caveat. Darvin will have to make it work with whatever roster he inherits from Rob. The Lakers though are seemingly polarized into inaction by caution. Is LeBron going to sign that extension on 8/4? That’s the Big Fish question and everything is dictated by how that breaks. Personally I actually don’t see any big moves happening until that day because it is at that time LeBron can comment on what he wants in order to make that happen. That’s 22 days away. Time enough for executives to go on vacation and come back. Camp starts in September-ish, between LeBron’s date and then there will be time enough to get a deal done, should a deal be found.
4. Cut bait and run? What are the 2027 and 2029 Laker 1st round draft picks truly worth? Remember they’re not the only picks we have access to, the other ones just can’t be traded until draft night of their respective summers. Or, crazy idea here, we could actually pick some young players with them! Regardless the Lakers will actually have one of either next or the following summer’s draft pick (based on what NOLA does). Get into it here. So, knowing that there will be pathways forward to draft young talent it’s curious to see the Lakers hold the line so staunchly regarding those 2 picks. There are two theories I have: one the Lakers realize how they have frittered away draft assets in pursuit of ill-fitting veterans and have chosen to stop doing that, Jeannie has clipped Rob’ wings a little bit…at least for now until we hear from The King. My guess is the second one. I think, for good or ill, Jeannie is asserting herself a little more. I don’t think the Lakers will trade those away without a firm commitment from LeBron. That’s smart, in my opinion. Everyone is saying all sorts of nice things but we’re talking about the same guy that left Cleveland in spectacular fashion on live TV, Miami without much notice and is now obligated to remain quiet until 8/4. This feels to many like a time to rush forward and do whatever one thinks may please LeBron. I am not one of those people. The Lakers have to do right by the Lakers and that means taking all the factors into consideration. LeBron is under contract next season and can sign an extension any time. He won’t demand a trade (or if so will look pretty silly doing so) and we won’t trade him (Jeannie has said as much up to this point saying even he doesn’t sign his extension they won’t consider trading him). James can’t say what he wants right now. So waiting is prudent if not really all that exciting.
5. The one that got away? With the news that the Indy deal is “dead” some panic may begin to creep into those who see a trade of Westbrook as the only way forward. First off no deal is dead until the players on said team aren’t on the team, have no-trade clauses, or veto rights. So it’s just dead for the time being because everyone is moving on for a few weeks. LeBron’s date is the key to everything. It opens all the doors for what he might want in this moment, allows him to voice his opinion and provide the information the Lakers obviously feel like they need to move forward. Is that smart? I don’t know. I think that it would probably be better for the Lakers to trade Russ one way or the other, if they can, but I am also of the opinion that you can’t so heavily sabotage the future to do so. Yes, they’re only 2 draft picks but they’re likely to be decent as neither AD or LeBron are likely to be on the team by then. By that logic they’re the two most valuable for the Lakers. That they represent the best chances to rebuild prior to 2030. I have to applaud the Lakers stance tis summer as it’s one I’ve long wanted them to adopt: open for business but we’re not suckers and we don’t throw draft picks away like it’s a fire sale. Cost-controlled players who re top ten picks can be franchise altering. If you’re not getting back a sure-fire banner competing team for them you’re doing yourself wrong by tossing them away. Buddy Heild is not that player, nether is Myles Turner. Frankly, given the fact he’s only averaged 55 games/season for his career, neither is Kyrie Irving. There’s still plenty of time, as well. A lot could change internally for all parties involved. The Nets could decide running it back as-is is preferable. The Pacers seem to want both for two decent players but that doesn’t change the fact that one of those players is injury prone (Myles Turner who has played in fewer than 50 games the past two seasons) and a defensive sieve in Buddy. Sorry but that deal is just not worth both of those draft picks.

In the end desperation is a bad look for anyone at the bargaining table. The Lakers have done a decent job of holding the line on what assets they have. That’s smart and a nice change to see happening after the last 3 summers where we threw good players at bad along with draft picks all in the name of silly tweaks to a roster that won it all. For all those moves we’ve made we basically have fewer draft picks and Russell Westbrook to show for it. That’s not really a track record of success. Where the Lakers do have a track record of success is in the draft and so I like that they are realizing where their strengths and weaknesses lie. That may not sync up with LeBron’s timeline. If so, so be it. That’s the nature of the NBA and LeBron will either be here or he won’t. One way or another the games will be played.

The idea of trade winds has been around for some time. If you’ve spent time at sea or hang with people with a nautical bent you’ll hear them bring them up on occasion. In case you’re wondering what they are: The trade winds are winds that reliably blow east to west just north and south of the equator. The winds help ships travel west, and they can also steer storms such as hurricanes, too. Stuck at sea? Head towards the equator and build some speed up, find some winds to ride and get back in sight of land. For all intents and purposes, the Lakers are currently stuck at sea and good trade wind may be the only way to regain momentum with the current crew.

1. The Perfect Storm. The big thing online these days is to dissect the myriad of ways the Lakers could acquire Kyrie Irving and some other players at the cost of Russell Westbrook and…and uh, well, that there’s the current conundrum. Hurricanes Lakers, Nets, Russell and Kyrie have not combined to form the perfect storm yet. Sometimes tropical storm Spurs get tossed out there as a potential catalyst but I ain’t buying that one. In fact it’s actually more like All Quiet on the Western Front with nothing but false radar blips and sonar pings in the form of media heads filling the time and space between now and the start of camp with the best TV the NBA has to offer this time of year: Laker drama at 6 followed by our T.G.I.F. line up of “What’s LeBron Doing?” at 7, “Look Where Russell Is Sitting” at 8 and “Look Kyrie Said Something at the Spark Game!!!” at 9 followed by the Late Show with host Anthony Davis. People call the week or so between the end of the playoffs and the draft the Dog Days of summer but, for me at least, this is the Dog Days. No real information, people who are paid to talk doing just that with nary a real fact to report and Lakers fans reeking of almost as much desperation as Rob clinging to every post or report. It’s enough to make a man watch Snowflake Mountain.
2. When the wind dies down. Sending Kyrie to the Lakers is really the only option they have besides keeping him on the roster and forcing his hand. If the Nets can’t find a suitable trade for Durant this option becomes a lot more viable since Durant has indicated that he would love to keep the wacky-ass partnership he has going with Irving alive on some other sucker, er, team. Why? Who knows and, frankly, who cares. The fact that Durant feels that way is enough for the Nets to keep the band together until camp comes around and let those two figure out what they want to do. Without KD and Irving it feels unlikely that the Nets will compete this season. That could change if they can convince Phoenix or Miami to part with an All Star…which also feels unlikely. To date the Nets have indicated that a Kyrie deal will happen after a Durant deal which doesn’t feel imminent. In fact all the noise around that topic has died down to barely a whisper, enough to make the water ripple but not enough to push the boat through the sea. I don’t think a Kyrie trade happens at all if the Nets can’t find a trade they like for Kevin.
3. The doldrums are a real thing. As reliable as a trade wind can be there is, like in all things, a flip side to that phenomena. It’s called The Doldrums. The doldrums is a popular nautical term that refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters. That’s where all parties involved are right now. Teams like Minnesota have rejected giving up 2 young stars (KAT and AE) and a grip ton of draft picks. There is no movement on the Phoenix or Miami front. The hilarious Golden State connection is DOA. In short, that ship isn’t going anywhere and is looking for a breath of fresh wind to fill the sails. Could that be a Kyrie Irving three team trade that ends up giving Brooklyn and large Traded Player Exception that could be used to offload a bad deal or two to help convince a team like Miami to part with Bam or Phoenix to part with Booker or Minny to part with newly extended Kat? No. I don’t think so. I’ve looked over what that involves and neither the Lakers or Nets have the draft assets, currently, to make that feasibly entice a team like San Antonio to do them a favor. So until the asking price for Durant goes down he is staying a Net.
4. Would the Nets just trade Kyrie and change for Russell? Personally I don’t see that happening for the following reasons: I think the Nets believe that they can bring Kevin back into the fold by not trading Kyrie and that they can get both guys on something akin to the same page with the organization. The Nets have bent over backwards to accommodate both men and they have continued to fill out the roster with useful role-players. Moves that remind me how the Lakers responded when Kobe demanded to be traded. They never once publicly said they wouldn’t do it but nor did they panic and take the first bad deal that came down the pike. The fact that both Durant and Bryant seemed to think they could be traded for players that weren’t All Stars and just bit guys and draft picks speaks to how out of touch with reality Durant is in this moment. The Nets might not get Booker but they won’t settle for an extended Ayton. The Nets might not get Jimmy but they won’t settle for an extended/hard-capping Herro. So on and so forth. The sticking point on the Lakers end seems to be utterly bailing on the rest of the decade and why that could, maybe just possibly, be a bad thing to do. Especially with the following facts in hand: COVID will get worse in winter which may very well lead states like California to require proof of vaccination in order to attend, engage in or be a part of indoor events. At that point Kyrie is about as valuable as The Maltese Falcon. Everyone assumes LeBron can reign in Kyrie, including LeBron. No offense but we saw how well that worked last season dude. James doesn’t have the pull or voice he once did, he couldn’t communicate with Russ in any meaningful way and still doesn’t seem to have. Does anyone really believe that Russ is more stubborn than Kyrie is? I don’t, at best they are the same level of self before others, at worse Kyrie is more stubborn as we have seen him willing to miss playoff games in the name of standing up for the little guy. Which he’s doing great at, by the way.
5. Any way the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me…to me. If this is mostly about keeping LeBron James happy than the calculus is jacked. LeBron is as fickle as they in regards to whom is on the team. The one thing that has been proven to me is that LeBron is good at a whole heckuva lot of things. Team building isn’t one of them. It’s why Cleveland lost it’s luster to him early on, they cowed to his every whim. It’s why he chose Miami because, somewhere inside of him, he realized he functions best in an organized and structured environment with a clear line of command. He went back to Cleveland to finish a job and he came here because it’s a matter of both convenience and mutual goals. He came because of the legacy and the history, not because the Laker front office are masters of, well, anything at all but leaking bad information for no advantageous reason whatsoever. He will move on, like all mercs do, when the goals diverge or the convenience becomes something else. He is not, and has never been, a Laker Lifer. I’m sure he’ll do the little Spectrum shows, do a top ten LeBron Laker moments, so on so forth. He’ll pass Laker Legends in a Laker uniform and that’s kind of cool but it also feels kind of calculated and, honestly, a little pre-meditated which pisses me off a little. Kobe played himself into the ground wearing that jersey, Magic had to be stricken by a deadly illness and still came back for more. LeBron? Well, if one is honest, he’s doing exactly what he can do right now which is wait until 8/4/2022 to say or do anything regarding his extension. So final judgement can wait a couple weeks. Still, I can’t let myself put LeBron in anywhere near the same category as the other all time Laker greats I just mentioned, I don’t even put him at Pau Gasol level, yet. Pau got traded, for wee and fragile Chris Paul who is unlikely to ever win a ring at this point, because some brainiac in the front office thought the ball dominant superstar who never gave the ball up to anybody would totally give the ball up to CP3 thus breaking up potentially the last, great Laker dynasty. How did Pau respond? He was, as he has always been, a pro about it. Called it unfortunate, said he wanted to stay a Laker, and played the season out Can’t say I believe that team had another ring in them but you never know and now we never will. Anyhow, point of all that here on #5 is we need to prepare for a post-LeBron world and nobody should really want Kyrie here unless he takes a pay cut and has a contract with games played performance clauses. If someone doesn’t show up to work (and let’s remember Kyrie averages 55 games/season and a lot of those aren’t due to any injuries at all nor exclusively COVID related) they’re about as useful as the office chair their ass should be sitting in.

Saturday has come and gone, summer league ends tomorrow, so when Mr. Sun comes up on Monday morning and there is no Kyrie trade it’ll just set off a different wave of absurdity and nonsense. “We saw them at the place, they talked and smiled, WOJ WAS THERE!!!” and other forms of boring malarkey. You can bet I’ll be tuning it out because it’s empty-headed nonsense brought to life for the sole purpose of occupying space and time. Rob should continue to try and leverage the Brooklyn situation to pressure a team like Indy to make a deal for THT and Nunn, sans draft picks if he can, and then batten down the hatches and prepare for a squall. The truth is even that kind of deal feels pretty farfetched at this point. Starting to feel like this is the team rolling into next season to me.

OK, here it is. Funny in that I had started this prior to the podcast where Marc Stein floated the same theory. Scary because that means there is more than a kernel of truth. Sad because this is the current state of Laker Nation. We have reached the Waiting on Kyrie Zone.

1. Don’t get it wrong, this ain’t no miracle for the Lakers or their fans. This is, in my opinion, bringing a player less reliable than Russell is. Oh, it’s Thursday before a lobster boil in Kansas? Sorry guys, can’t make the game. Random social justice cause that I can Tweet about but actually do very little? Gonna need a week of personal time with full pay to get through it. The Earth is flat, nah just kidding I know it’s round I just use my platform for bullshyte. That is the maturity and character of the person the Lakers now seem to be focusing far too much attention on. Give me Russ over Kyrie all day, every day from now until the end of time. Kyrie is a joke, not a serious basketball player.
2. Ok, ok, got that outta my system…kinda. On the court Irving is a far superior fit alongside AD and LeBron than Russ is. Kyrie can shoot, is as able a distributor and has maybe the best handle in the game today. It’s the baggage…so very much baggage. It threatens to suck anything that comes into it’s orbit into an absurdist pit of wackiness without end. You want to challenge your new coach? Throw that mess on his plate and walk away.
3. Ok, ok…ok. Now I really have gotten that out of my system. There aren’t many paths for Irving to become a Laker. The first is the least likely which is straight trade with the Nets. Russ at $47,063,478 and Kyrie at $36,503,300 means there is too large a gap and the Nets have to send another player or few. Seth Curry at $8,496,653 just about does it and certainly does if you throw in Kessler (who?) Edwards at $1,563,518. There are other permutations that can be juggled but the real issue is the Nets have signaled they do not want anything to do with Westbrook. This route feels DOA.
4. Multi team trade. What this really should read is three team trade with OKC, Brooklyn and LA. No other team has the cap space or the inclination to hoard draft picks like the Thunder do. Are there other teams with the requisite cap space, or clearable cap space? Sure, but those aren’t realistic options, IMO. Real hard for me seeing OKC doing the Lakers a favor, of course the cost would be the last two tradeable draft picks in our stockpile, maybe Reaves to boot. The one thing this path would do is open up the door to adding THT and Nunn into the deal and getting below the tax apron thus opening up better spending tools. Still, hard for me to see this one happening in so short of time.
5. Everyone’s dream team. Irving opts out and signs with LA for the MLE. Big 4 of Russ, Kyrie, LeBron and AD. The stuff nightmares are made of. For Laker fans. Who would get the ball? Who would be the worst defender? How often would Kyrie play when paid so little? Still, in all reality, this path seems the most likely to me for Irving to wind up in the purple and gold. The fit would be…interesting. Certainly would give the Lakers another ball handler and some shooting to maybe open up the floor a little but it really just looks and feels like too many cooks in the kitchen. Unless it’s a race to see who plays in fewer games: Davis or Irving (Irving would get my bet).

All in all, it’s a small chance but a real one. No GM is likely to want to do either Kyrie or the Lakers any favors. The Lakers would be insane if they gave Kyrie a multi-year extension since it’s all but guaranteed he’ll miss large portions of every season (currently averaging 55 games/season and at 30 years old he won’t be getting any healthier), at least without a trial season on the MLE…where he will likely miss a boatload of games to pout about how little he is being paid. The talent is undeniable, and so is the petulant attitude and lack of seriousness when it comes to being a pro athlete. He should come with a warning: buyer beware, player likely to throw a pique and be out of contact for stretches of the season. But it is the Lakers so anything is possible.

The NBA is entering the home stretch of the 2021-22 season and Laker fans have all but tuned out the games as they had been riveted first by a coaching search (now complete and welcome to the dumpster fire Coach Ham!) and now by the ponderous and burdensome search for a palatable trade for one Russell Westbrook. What tastes good to fans seemingly isn’t acceptable to Rob Pelinka and the Laker ownership cabal. With the news coming from the internet that the Lakers are unwilling to attach future draft considerations to a Westbrook trade, Russ signaling his enthusiasm for Ham’s hiring, and the tepid market for Westbrook in general it would seem the Lakers are headed towards a second season of our version of a Big Three. So, while this writer has long been of the opinion there was a decent to good chance that Russ would continue his career in the purple and gold, I wanted to look at some things that just might change the equation for trading Russ.

1. The Lakers move off their current and alleged stance of no future draft considerations attached in a deal for Westbrook. While this may seem the obvious choice to some it’s not a reach to understand where Rob is coming from in publicly declaring such a stance. First off, the term “news flash” does not apply to anything related to the Lakers wanting to move off the Westbrook contract and improve the roster or at least make a decent lateral move. File that one under “No Doy, Man”. So Rob could be deploying an absurd stratagem of “Nuh-Uh, Dude, we WANT to keep Russ, like, fer sure, man!!!!” because like any desperate gambler you have to at least try a bluff when you’re down in chips, short on assets and daylight is creeping into the room signaling that tomorrow has arrived. I actually think Rob is serious when he says he’d rather ride it out. There are quite a few benefits the most obvious being that if the three core players can play more the team will perform better. Russell will be an unrestricted free agent next season and could either be retained on a team-friendly extension or seek employment elsewhere thus freeing up a plethora of cap space to rebuild the roster. Again. For the third time since winning a title.
2. Damien Lillard demands a trade. This is one of the things that I could see severely altering the NBA landscape. If Dame Time decides he wants no part of a Portland rebuild it’s easy to see a plethora of teams looking to get in on that action. While I don’t think the Lakers have an attractive trade package to offer Portland they could potentially get in on a multiteam deal that facilitates Russ being moved elsewhere. Trading for Dame would probably take better draft assets than we currently have. Could the Lakers up the ante and look to include THT, Nunn, Reaves, Johnson, Gabriel both draft picks and bring back Lillard and Bledsoe? Honestly…I’m not sure I would make that deal…but that is the kind of thing that could potentially alter the equation for a Westbrook trade.
3. Donovan Mitchell demands a trade. With the news that Quinn Snyder has walked away from his coaching gig in Utah came the not really surprising news that Donovan Mitchell is uneasy with the direction of the franchise and is seeking some form of re-assurement. If he doesn’t get that it’s possible he could demand a trade. Like Damien this has the potential to shift the NBA landscape. While it would make a lot more sense for the Jazz to try and move Gobert let’s assume for the sake of this article that Spida is adamant about changing teams. If so the Lakers could be in the position of trading Russ, the draft picks and Nunn (should he opt in) for Spida, Clarkson and Gay which would be the kind of cap space that would allow Utah to revamp the roster. Again, the issue with that kind of trade is that Utah isn’t really a destination franchise, especially with a star player asking out, a coach walking away, and, well, Utah. So it’s hard for one to imagine a bevy of free agents going there but you never know. Ainge could be in a place where he’s excited about a total rebuild and while this trade is short on draft assets it does get three large money players off the book and give Utah a ton of flexibility to either tear it down more by trading Rudy.
4. Utah looks to appease Spida by trading Rudy Gobert and Rudy Gay. Had Coach Snyder stayed in Utah I really wouldn’t see this happening. Donovan and Rudy have had their differences, ironed them out, and more differences came up. While adding Russell to Utah’s roster without moving Mike Conley doesn’t make a ton of sense they could pursue a separate Conley trade elsewhere. Russ for Rudy squared works in the trade machine and, in theory, Utah might not ask for a pick to get it done in order to keep Mitchell happy. There are few centers with the defensive acumen that Gobert has. While assuredly not a stretch five does it really matter? You allow AD to play the 4 for the next 4 years left on Gobert’s deal, you have the lob threat LeBron loves to work with and as elite a defender as you can find in the NBA. You can bench him in the playoffs and go small without worry because you have Davis on the roster. While not the NBA altering deal the above are this one is a little easier to imagine going through given the news out of Utah.
5. Zach LaVine pulls an AD. This one, in my opinion, is dream fodder. LaVine isn’t the talent AD was, Chicago ain’t the Pelicans in terms of calling a bluff, and LaVine will find a dry market when it comes to major franchises. Cap space is low across the league and the pool of talent is small. So, unless Zach has an itch for max money in OKC his best shot is to stay right where he is. But, again, for the sake of the article if Zach and Klutch did try and maneuver him to LA in a S&T that’s really the last option I see the Lakers having in terms of a realistic Russ trade that also opens the door back to contention.

In my opinion it will take a superstar demanding to move that represents a clear improvement to the team for Rob to move off his draft pick stance. I can still see them trading for John Wall straight up or even maybe Gordon Hayward and some junk but neither of those gets the team to the NBA Finals again. Who knows what Wall has left and Hayward is the small forward version of Davis: solid when healthy but can’t be counted on to be available when they’re needed most, or at all. For my part I’d rather keep Russ than trade for a broken player or one like Wall who’s skillset largely mirrors Westbrook’s but hasn’t played in what will be just under two years when next season rolls around. You don’t get better that way, you just get older. After that I doubt there’s much interest from team’s that made the playoffs this season or had down years like Atlanta and New York. A Russ trade is one that signals a full rebuild, or as close as you get to one, and neither of those teams are i that position. They’re looking for improvements on the margin, little tweaks to the roster not wholesale tear-downs. That is the issue with the size of Russ’s deal: there just aren’t many teams looking for that level of restructuring this summer. The playin and lottery tweaks have made the league tilt towards wanting to be competitive all season long since your draft odds don’t dramatically shift with losing. We’ve already seen how teams in the playin one season can ascend to really competitive the following one in Memphis, how chemistry builds a winner in Milwaukee, and the fact is Russ isn’t the kind of player that alters your trajectory at this point. So my advice to you is invest in trade hopes and dreams but you should also buckle up and prepare yourself to ride this out with Russ on the roster.