The Los Angeles Lakers are saving their 2027 and 2029 draft picks for a superstar trade and Bradley Beal has been linked as a potential trade Target for the Los Angeles Lakers so Marc Stein ended up reporting this.
It looks like the Lakers want to keep those picks at least that’s what rival teams believe in case a currently unforeseen shot to trade for a legitimate third star like Washington’s Bradley Beal materializes suddenly and when I look at this I look back to the very start of the Season where the Los Angeles Lakers at least based on reports could have had a chance to add Buddy Hield and Myles Turner they didn’t do that and now the Los Angeles Lakers are sitting at a point in the season.
Where it’s going to be difficult to fight their way back and get into the play in picture and that’s rough considering that the Lakers have a big three of LeBron Westbrook and Anthony Davis you’d expect them to do better than that but a Russell Westbrook trade for Buddy Hield and Myles Turner could have likely led the Lakers to be a much better team in the standings than they are now and waiting on a guy like Bradley Beal to potentially become available for a trade might not be the best idea especially considering the landscape of the league.
When you look at the playing tournament because the Wizards they’re better than the Lakers and they’re not too far out of the play and in the East so they might hold out hope that they at least make it into the play-in tournament and start putting together some more wins throughout the season and that’s the thing with the play in there’s going to be more teams looking to be competitive as a result of that tournament so why would the Washington Wizards give up on Bradley Beal.
When they sign him to a five-year extension this offseason and he’s in just year one of that deal and they also have a chance to get into the playoffs with the playing tournament and the Lakers could have a chance to do that and they could make that happen even if they didn’t go out and trade for a third star I would actually argue that trying to make a trade for some solid role players could really be an Avenue for the Lakers to try and compete.
I think that they should have done it prior to the start of the season because it could have been an opportunity for them to set themselves up well and not have to scramble to try and put together wins and get into the play in or playoff picture as the season is continuing on because it’s more difficult to make trades throughout the season as teams want to be competitive with that play-in tournament as I mentioned and it makes it more difficult for the Lakers to find guys who they could add and could contribute to the roster.
And I think it’s just really unfortunate especially now that the Lakers didn’t make that buddy hield and Myles Turner trade both of those guys are having amazing years in Indiana.