Getty Anthony Davis of the Los Angeles Lakers and Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks.
With the regular season done, the Los Angeles Lakers will set their sights on the Play-In Tournament and playoffs. After a bumpy start to the season, they turned things around in a big way, and fans have every right to be excited about what’s in store for this roster.
But if things don’t go well for them in the postseason, there’s always the possibility that they could explore changes. With how poor the season went for the Dallas Mavericks, some have speculated that Luka Doncic could ask for a trade as soon as the 2024 offseason. According to Sam Quinn of CBS Sports, who ranked all 29 teams in terms of potential Doncic landing spots, the Lakers wouldn’t have a great shot at snagging the Slovenian superstar.
“The Lakers are going to have a hard time trading picks because of the two they currently owe to other teams (2024 or 2025 to the Pelicans and 2027 to the Jazz),” Quinn wrote. “Austin Reaves has grown into an important young player, but he’s not good enough to be the centerpiece of a Doncic trade. The Lakers, like the Clippers, could boost their package by flipping their current sidekick, but Anthony Davis is so injury-prone that he likely isn’t getting enough back to entice Dallas. Even if he did, Doncic probably won’t want to hitch his wagon to LeBron James going into his age-40 season.”
As mentioned, the harsh reality is that the Lakers simply don’t have a good enough centerpiece to form a trade around. Dallas wouldn’t want James because he’s entering the latter stages of his career, they wouldn’t want Davis because he’s injury prone and wouldn’t have a co-star, and no one else on the roster is valuable enough for the Mavericks to consider.
LeBron James Shows Love to Rui Hachimura
In other news, after the Lakers’ recent win over the Utah Jazz, James praised Rui Hachimura for his play as of late.
“He’s a super competitor, and he wants to be great,” James said of Hachimura via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel. “He wants to be held accountable. He’s always asking me what he can do better to help this team [and] how can he be better to help this team, not only when he’s on the floor, but he wants to be on the floor. I feel like we complement each other very well along with AR [Austin Reaves]. I complement myself with AR very well. And obviously, we know what myself and AD [Anthony Davis] will be able to do. But Rui is, the more minutes when he knows he’s going to play, when he gets that routine off of consistency, he shows what he’s capable of doing.”
Darvin Ham Praises Lakers Role Players
Meanwhile, after the Lakers’ recent win over the Phoenix Suns, head coach Darvin Ham showed love to the team’s role players.
“It’s huge. For those guys [Reaves, Russell, and Beasley] to be able to carry the load and make some shots and have their own different segments during the game, it’s huge, man,” Ham said via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel. “The more pressure we can take off Bron and AD so they don’t have to to go out and save the day or make every play, the better. When they can just play manageable minutes, and those other guys step up and come out and play well, it just makes us that much more dangerous, and it also saves some gas for our two big dogs.”
