The Los Angeles Lakers let the trade deadline pass them by without making any move to change their roster. The Lakers have been struggling massively with their current roster and were expected to make at least one move before the deadline yesterday, but they did not make any sort of move to try and fix their team.
But it appears there was a massive trade on the table for the Lakers, but the Lakers passed it up. As revealed by Chris Haynes on Inside The NBA on TNT, the Houston Rockets offered to take Russell Westbrook off their hands in exchange for John Wall but wanted the Lakers’ 2027 first-round draft pick. The Lakers refused to give them that draft pick, and thus, the deal collapsed (11:29 mark).
“It was tough. They don’t have many assets. Taken Horton-Tucker was probably the lone treasured asset that they had, and nobody in his place. You can’t trade him and get somebody to replace him that was probably going to be an upgrade, that was going to help the Lakers. They were stuck in that regard. Sources informed me that the Rockets did reach out to the Lakers to offer John Wall for Russell Westbrook, but they wanted the Lakers to include a first round pick. The Lakers declined that, that was the end of that discussion right there. As far as that goes, there was really not much more that the Lakers could do.”
We had heard rumors about this potential trade. The rumor had also suggested that Christian Wood and Talen Horton-Tucker could have been part of the deal. But in the end, the Lakers felt giving up their draft pick was too large a price to pay to offload Westbrook.
The Lakers not giving up their 2027 draft pick makes sense, given that the pick would probably come when the Lakers are rebuilding after their championship window closes, and losing assets for their rebuilding process would set them back quite significantly.
