The Los Angeles Lakers are reportedly trying to trade for Jerami Grant. According to Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report, the Portland Trail Blazers want at least two first-round draft picks in any deal for Grant. It appears that the Lakers are gunshy about pulling the trigger on the deal and giving up those picks.
Jerami Grant had a decent season with the Trail Blazers, averaging 21.0 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.8 assists. But the Blazers were one of the worst teams in the NBA last year and failed to make any decent impact in the Western Conference. Grant has shown that he may be a good scorer, but he is not a number one option on a team.
The Lakers would actually be a great landing spot for Grant, as he would have to play as the third option at best behind LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The scoring that Grant would bring to the Lakers could be the key ingredient for them to finally make a serious and consistent championship effort.
But once again, it appears Lakers GM Rob Pelinka is too worried about giving up future assets in this deal. Pelinka has rarely made any major moves to improve the roster, ever since the trade to land Russell Westbrook massively backfired and led to the Lakers missing the playoffs.
Pelinka’s concern is that he wants the team to be in a position to rebuild once the LeBron James era ends. But he seems to be wasting what are still some very good season for LeBron James by not surrounding him with the right pieces.
Are LeBron James And Rob Pelinka At Odds With Each Other?
Kendrick Perkins recently spoke about LeBron James and Rob Pelinka not being on the same page about the Lakers. He noted that James is focused on winning championships, whereas Pelinka wants to make sure the Lakers don’t mortgage their future to do that, which has left the team in a strange place.
“To me, it seems like they’re on two different pages. When it comes down to LeBron, the reason he wanted to take a pay cut is for the simple fact that he wants to win now at a high level. Every single time he steps on the floor, LeBron James is thinking about championships.”
“Rob Pelinka is thinking about the future. I think when you have someone like LeBron James, who is considered one of the greatest if not the greatest player of all time, you got to take advantage of that, do what you need to do to make sure you put championship-caliber players around him so he can go out and complete the mission.”
There were reports earlier this month that Pelinka and James have different priorities when it comes to the Lakers, which seemingly confirms what Perkins was saying. While it is understandable that Pelinka wants to help keep the team’s future safe, historically, all teams in the NBA have been willing to part ways with assets in order to win championships.
Perhaps Pelinka comes around and gives the Trail Blazers the picks in order to land Grant. As things stand however, the Lakers are far from being contenders, and their roster is perhaps only good enough to make the play-in tournament, despite having two of the best players in the league on their team.
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