The Los Angeles Lakers are going to suffer some big changes this offseason after a tumultuous 2021/22 campaign where they failed to meet the expectations and couldn’t make it to the play-in tournament. The Purple and Gold assembled a great team before the start of the season, only to underperform and disappoint their fans.
The Russell Westbrook trade didn’t work, the veterans couldn’t make an impact on the squad and their star duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis dealt with injuries, which made it impossible for the team to have a successful campaign.
Following this terrible campaign, many people have urged the Lakers to get rid of Russell Westbrook, while others say that Anthony Davis should leave the squad, too. Others are more daring and claim that LeBron James is the one that should leave the team.
ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith recently dropped this idea, explaining that the Lakers aren’t going anywhere with their current roster and sending Bron away could give them the right pieces to assemble a competitive team.
“I have an announcement I’d like to make. It is involving LeBron James. I wanna announce to the American public that I think the Los Angeles Lakers should strongly consider trading LeBron James. That is what I believe.
“Now a lot of people are gonna lose their minds because the brother is 37 and in his 19 years and just averaged 30 and all this other stuff and if the team was better, he would have been a league MVP candidate without question. This is not throwing a speck of shame on LeBron James… I’m telling you, this is no shade to him at all.
Moreover, he mentioned one team that could welcome LeBron and send some interesting players to Los Angeles. Smith says that the Miami Heat has the assets to unlock negotiations with the Purple and Gold (4:59).
“I’m calling Miami because they’ve got some – you talk about Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, they’ve got some young talent,” Smith said. “I’m calling them.”
This is an interesting idea, but it’s unlikely that the Lakers can pull this off seeing that the Heat are all-in on their current core. LeBron has a history with them, but there’s no way they’ll exchange Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, even if they get one of the best players of all time in return.
