Reports have surfaced about Rob Pelinka and the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers front office is looking to do to prepare for the NBA Trade Deadline. While neither Sabreena Merchant nor I were all that shocked to find out DeAndre Jordan and Kent Bazemore are being actively shopped, it did strike us as interesting that we’d get these leaks more than a month before February 10.
Well, to be clear, finding out the Lakers are doing whatever they can to make everyone forget the Jordan era as quickly as possible isn’t all that surprising, but still.
Before we dove headfirst into our trade deadline discussion, though, we did sit back and enjoy how nice it’s been to have Frank Vogel back and marvel at his apparent mastery of media messaging. Shades of Ted Lasso owning Rupert Mannion.
From there, we jumped into our thought on today’s rumors and with an especially close look at Bazemore. Yes, he has been incredibly frustrating this year, but it does feel pretty early to be giving up on his season given his (at this point theoretical) skillset and how difficult it would be to replace it.
We also took a closer look at the only first-round pick the Lakers can deal (2027) and how reluctant Sabreena and I would be to offer it up in a trade. The cupboard would be ostensibly empty after that and the post-LeBron James era could get off to a brutal start — which is fine if such a trade nets another ring, but there is quite a bit of risk at play here.
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And for a short-form recap pod, check out Lakers Lowdown, in which Anthony Irwin recaps the previous day’s news and gets you ready for the day ahead in LakerLand, every weekday morning on the Silver Screen & Roll Podcast feed.