The Los Angeles Lakers are having a confusing season which has made many reconsider their opinions on the roster and LeBron James. After a terrible offseason where the Lakers had a clearly weak team on paper and a disastrous 2-10 start, many thought the Lakers were going to be lottery fodder and fail to make the playoffs for a second consecutive season.
However, the Lakers have managed to swing things around and only sit 2 games out of .500 in a Western Conference where those 2 wins could catapult them as high as 6th in the standings. This success over the last few months, led by their two stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis when healthy, has prompted fans to agitate for a trade to make this team better and give them a chance to contend this season.
There have been no trades in LA since they acquired Patrick Beverley in the offseason. Dave McMenamin believes the Lakers are not going to find a trade partner easily because of ‘professional jealousy’ that owners and GM’s harbor against the team and LeBron James.
Brian Windhorst and Dave McMenamin on the Lakers being “very cautious” with their next trade: pic.twitter.com/bImz4AZJSG
— The Lakers Review (@TheLakersReview) January 11, 2023
“I don’t think there’s a magic bullet trade that’s loaded and out there that the Lakers haven’t pursued. Obviously, a lot of the trades that we end up talking about are figments of people’s imagination. There are teams out there that have owners who don’t want to deal with the Lakers out of professional jealousy. There are general managers who don’t wanna deal with LeBron James or Rich Paul or Rob Pelinka out of professional jealousy, so they already have things going against them when it comes to finding deals that are out there.”
“As long as the Lakers are being true, and they should be because this is bigger than LeBron James. It is about being the brand of the land of champions, the 17 banners, the Larry O’Brien trophies in Jeanie Buss’s office overlooking the practice court. If they are all about winning, then they will dot he right thing and make a significant trade to give this team a chance to win, not just LeBron a chance to win, but this team a chacne to win in short order.”
The Lakers coming out of the toughest spell of their history at the end of Kobe Bryant’s career to signing LeBron James 2 seasons after Kobe’s retirement had to be a reversal of fortunes only LA can pull off, especially as they won the title in 2020 after a trade for Anthony Davis.
Should Teams Be Jealous Of The Lakers?
The banners, the stars, the history, and the location often makes the Lakers impossible to compete with when the front office is doing a good job. The Russell Westbrook trade set them back heavily and no team will be rushing to their aid and help them come out of the hole they put themselves in. They’ve been laughed at for bad trades but nobody is going to help them make a good trade.
When you’re the big kid on the block, you often become the target of people looking to dethrone you. The crown is firmly off the Lakers’ head but teams wouldn’t be rushing to put it back on. In terms of the assets LA has to offer, there really isn’t anything that the Lakers can offer, so overpaying through picks is going to be what they’ll be forced to do by every team who they want a player.
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