The Los Angeles Lakers would rather not sell their soul to acquire Kyrie Irving, even if it means moving off of Russell Westbrook, who has been nothing but problematic since his arrival.
Unfortunately for the Purple and Gold, LeBron James does not feel the same way. As Brian Windhorst noted on ‘Get Up’ Thursday morning, Bron has no desire to save picks and wants the Lakers to do whatever it takes to bring Uncle Drew to L.A.
“I can’t articulate how little LeBron cares about the Lakers’ 2029 first-round pick. He has never cared about draft picks. He wants to win tonight, and Kyrie Irving gives them a chance tonight. That will be the key. We are in a moment right now when teams are pushing back against player empowerment. The Nets are pushing back for sure. We see some pushback in Utah with the way the Jazz are pushing back Donovan Mitchell. Now the Lakers are staring at this. Are they honestly going to push back on LeBron James if he’s sitting there with a pen, ready to sign an extension, making sure the Lakers remain relevant in a championship, possible contender? for the next two years, and they’re trying to negotiate… and I’m gonna have my popcorn and watch because I know how LeBron feels about these things.”
If you’re the Lakers, you want to do whatever you can to protect and preserve the future. With young guns like Talen Horton-Tucker and Austin Reaves, they have players to develop, which can help give them options going forward.
With the few draft picks they still control, the Lakers also have some assets to work with that can help pull them out of the gutter if things get ugly in a few years. Trading all of them away to pursue a championship now is a risky move that the Lakers (at least for now) are not willing to make. We will see if their stance changes over the next few days and weeks.
