NBA Trade Rumors: Lakers Must Stop Shopping Pau Gasol After Insulting Offers

The Los Angeles Lakers are on the fast-track to nowhere, but that doesn’t mean they need to give away Pau Gasol for 50-cents on the dollar.

The Lakers have fielded offers from the Timberwolves in exchange for Derrick Williams and a first-round pick, the Rockets in return for Luis Scola/Kevin Martin and the Bulls for Carlos Boozer and a pick.

All of them are 50-cent on the dollar and in the Bulls case, it's borderline highway robbery.

That’s the market for a 31-year-old power forward scheduled to make $19 million next season and $19.2 million in the last year of his deal.

Despite averaging a career-low 16.6 points on less than a 50 percent clip, Gasol is still averaging 10.7 rebounds and can still be a legitimate piece of a championship contender. On a Lakers squad that has zero scorers aside from Kobe Bryant, he is still extremely valuable to the team who has won two of the last three championships.

Bryant recently sounded off about the way management has been shopping his teammate (via Yahoo! Sports):

"

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.

"

Right now, Gasol isn’t sure if he’ll be in L.A. for the rest of his career or gone by tomorrow night. Sure all NBA player’s go through spells like this, but it’s a mental hurdle that is difficult for any person to get over.

The Lakers need a point guard, that’s no secret. The available players on the trading block (Ramon Sessions, Jonny Flynn) are not the answer. At this point, there is little they can do without giving up a ton of talent. A low-risk move would be to sign Gilbert Arenas to a veteran’s minimum and see if he can help relieve the aging Derek Fisher and ineffective Steve Blake.

GM Mitch Kupchak told Sam Amick of Sports Illustrated he doesn’t plan on making any sort of moves before the deadline unless they receive an incredible offer. In other words, he is waiting for the Orlando Magic to panic and offer Dwight Howard for Andrew Bynum.

And he should.

Anything less than a star is unacceptable in a trade at this point. The rejected Chris Paul trade and subsequent give away of Lamar Odom demolished the purple and gold’s season before it even began.

At this point, no move is the right move and the front office needs to start planning for next season. Is it fair? Absolutely not. But it’s the reality of the situation and management has to adjust according.

Gasol is going to be a Laker for at least the remainder of this season…might as well announce it to the world.