Getty Lakers potential trade target Malcolm Brogdon (middle)
The Lakers are still licking their wounds from the humbling Dan Hurley coaching experience, of course, and moving on toward finding someone else to run the team, but the key speculation around the team remains what, exactly, will happen with the roster this NBA summer. And amid a long list of speculative trades, there is a modest one that would see the Lakers bring in a capable veteran point guard at a decent price.
The point guard: 2023 Sixth Man of the Year winner Malcolm Brogdon.
Brogdon is a talented and experienced point man, the kind of player the Lakers hoped they were getting last year when they signed Gabe Vincent to a three-year deal. Vincent injured his knee, though, and played just 11 regular-season games before struggling badly (1.4 points, 25.0% shooting) in five postseason appearances.
Brogdon is a better player than Vincent, no doubt, but has a higher price tag—and is more of an injury risk, to boot.
Malcolm Brogdon Trade Could Come Cheap
To get Brogdon to the Lakers might not take much. He is in the final year of a two-year, $45 million contract extension he’d gotten from the Pacers before he was traded to the Celtics in 2022. Boston shipped him to Portland as part of the Jrue Holiday trade last summer.
In the L.A. Times, Lakers beat writer Dan Woike floated Brogdon as a potential trade candidate, writing, “With Brogdon, you’re taking on some injury risk for a player who has affected games on both ends of the court in the past. Maybe his expiring deal with the Portland Trail Blazers lowers the price tag below a first-round pick.”
That’s possible, but the Lakers would instead have to give up last year’s first-round pick, point guard Jalen Hood-Schifino. A couple of veterans the Blazers could trade, plus Hood-Schifino might be the best Portland can do. A proposed deal would go send out three players.
Blazers receive: Jarred Vanderbilt, Gabe Vincent, Jalen Hood-Schifino
Lakers receive: Malcolm Brogdon
Now, the concern about Brogdon is that he played only 39 games last year, mostly because of an elbow injury he suffered in February. That has been consistent with his career, during which Brogdon has missed at least 15 games in every season since his rookie year.
He played just 36 games in his final season with the Pacers, and has missed 104 of 246 games in the last three years.
Lakers Need a Shooter in the Backcourt
Still, Brogdon is just what the Lakers need when he is healthy, a quality ballhandler and set-up man who can knock down shots from the 3-point line. For his career, Brogdon has averaged 15.4 points and 4.7 assists, while shooting 46.4% from the field and 39.1% from the 3-point line.
If they can gamble on Brogdon staying healthy, he would bring the perimeter presence the Lakers lacked last year, when they ranked just 24th with 11.8 3-pointers made per game.
“He has always been a deadeye shooter from out there, and that is what you need if you’re (the Lakers) at this point,” one Western Conference executive told Heavy Sports. “He is not a flashy star type but they don’t need that. The injuries scare you, but you just have to be careful with him.
“If he is healthy at the end (of the year), he’s the kind of guy who gives them some of the spacing they really have not had in the last few years.”