Lakers Trade Rumors: Why LA Cant Trade Pau Gasol

This season there have been a lot of trade rumors involving Pau Gasol.

In the pre season the Lakers had seemingly reached a deal will the New Orleans Hornets that would have sent Gasol packing, and brought in Chris Paul. That was until of course the NBA commissioner, David Stern, stepped in and said otherwise.

This incident has not slowed the Lakers attempt to move Gasol along. They keep trying, but either the management just wants to see what they could get for him or they just can’t close the deals.

All of the back-and-forth drove Gasol’s teammate to the edge when he finally called out Laker management after a loss against the Phoenix Suns.

"It's just tough for a player to give his all when you don't know if you're going to be here tomorrow. I'd rather them not trade him at all. If they're going to do something, I wish they would just [expletive] do it. If they're not going to do it, come out and say you're not going to do it. This way he can be comfortable, he can go out, he can play and he can invest all of himself into the game."

Nothing yet is clear. Gasol may not remain be a Laker for much longer but if the Lakers are smart he will remain in a Laker uniform.

After already trading away one of their big men, Lamar Odom, the Laker looked lost to start the season.

After big wins against the Mavericks and the Heat were starting to look like them old selves, but they are still very inconsistent.

Trading Gasol would not help the Lakers become more consistent or even win more games. They need to keep the team they have now and continue to work out their offensive woes.

Gasol, currently second in scoring and rebounding on the Lakers, is averaging 16.8 points and 10.5 boards a game.

If they were to trade away Gasol, more than likely they would not get anyone who could match that type of production on a nightly basis.

Even if the trade with Gasol and Paul had gone through in the beginning of the season it probably would have hurt the Lakers more than it would have helped seeing as they have also got rid of Lamar Odom.

Getting rid of two of their most dominant big men would be more detrimental to the Lakers this season then Paul could have made up for.

Right now with the Lakers only averaging 94 points a game, which is currently 21^st in the league, they need to keep up their defense, which had been fairly solid as of late, allowing only 91.7 points a game.

Gasol is currently having one of the better defensive seasons in his career but like the rest of the Lakers his offense have started to drop off, a whole two points from last year.

The Lakers offense has been figuring and ironing out the problems lately as they have scored over 100 points in seven of their last 10 games.

With the offense coming together and the defense one of the best that they Lakers have had in a while. They should not need to make any kind of changes.

So why trade Pau?

If someone finally pulled the trigger and sent Gasol packing, best case scenario the Lakers might get a couple mid-rate players and some high draft picks.

They don’t need, or even want that right now.

Maybe when the season is over, and a full season lies ahead where teams will have time to work out kinks like the Lakers have has this season without putting the entire season in jeopardy.

Don’t do it Lakers.

You are finally looking like the Lakers that everyone knows. Don’t mess it up.