Lakers Rumors: Potential Trade Expected to 'Drag' into January, Close to NBA Deadline

The Los Angeles Lakers aren't approaching any prospective trades with new urgency amid their 7-4 start to the 2024-25 NBA season, according to The Athletic's Jovan Buha.

Buha reported on his podcast the Lakers front office still wants to wait and see how the current roster looks before seriously contemplating big moves.

"I felt they should've made a move at the 2024 trade deadline. I felt they should've made a move last offseason, so I'm in the camp of make a move sooner than later," he said at the 4:22 mark of Thursday's episode. "But based on the intel that has come out of the Lakers side, intel around the organization, intel just from third parties, it seems to be that this is going to be a situation that drags into January, if not closer to that Feb. 6 trade deadline."

This is the time frame general manager Rob Pelinka set before the season tipped off. He told reporters in September he thought 30 games was the right amount to judge the squad under first-year head coach JJ Redick.

From the moment Pelinka made those comments, though, the question was whether Los Angeles could actually wait that long or if that kind of caution was necessary. Sure, Redick presented a new wrinkle as the coach, but a lot of the notable players on the Lakers are known quantities. It was pretty easy to identify the team's likely strengths and weaknesses.

Although the Lakers' overall performance hasn't created cause for panic, it has arguably reinforced the need for a major blockbuster or the kind of improvements around the margins Pelinka made ahead of the 2023 trade deadline.

Los Angeles' three-game winning streak could be a bit of a mirage considering each of those three contests saw LeBron James finish with a triple-double. It may not be ideal for the long haul to have the 39-year-old playing 35 minutes a night, either.

The supporting cast is lacking at the moment too.

Los Angeles is 28th in bench scoring with 24.4 points per game, according to NBA.com. Gabe Vincent is shooting 16.7 percent from beyond the arc. D'Angelo Russell has been shifted to the second unit. Jaxson Hayes is nursing an ankle injury.

The danger for the Lakers is that they could pay a cost for their prudence.

The Western Conference playoff race is going to be very tight. Right now, only five games separate the first-place Oklahoma City Thunder from the Dallas Mavericks in 12th place. Early as it might be in the season, failing to secure a few wins now could have consequences on postseason seeding down the line.

Pelinka shouldn't rush into a bad trade for the sake of making a deal. But he shouldn't be closed off to the idea just because it's November.