Lakers Would Regret Not Giving Luka, LeBron More Help amid Latest NBA Trade Rumors

The Los Angeles Lakers, like a lot of good-not-great teams, should see Thursday's NBA trade deadline as a chance to fix some flaws and potentially position themselves for a deep playoff push.

This should be an exciting time—so why do things sound so sleepy in Hollywood?

As insider Jake Fischer relayed on a recent B/R live stream, L.A's inability land Keon Ellis, the team's "No. 1 guy," was the latest "indicator that the Lakers are not super aggressive right now." While a limited trade budget ties the team's hands to a certain extent, it doesn't sound like L.A. would make a splash even if it could.

The Lakers, it seems, are already thinking about their next chapter, which reportedly won't include one of the main characters from their current one. As Fischer stated plainly, "The Lakers are ready to move on from LeBron James, and I think LeBron James is ready to move on from the Lakers as well."

Fischer characterized it as a "forgone sentiment in Los Angeles right now about what's to come this summer." That means, the team has mere months to go as far as James, Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves can carry it.

If the Lakers don't come out of trade season any different than they enter it, that won't be very far.

The stars can cook up enough offensive masterpieces to give L.A. the courtesy puncher's chance in any theoretical series. Big-picture, though, it's tough to get too excited about a club that struggles to shoot and defend.

That's why this deadline should be everything for the franchise. Because if you believe in the Purple and Gold's best players, then you can reasonably wonder whether this team might be just a trade or two away from a major breakthrough.

Because even with this defensive generosity, erratic shooting, sporadic support and injury absences by both James and Reaves, the Lakers have the ninth-highest winning percentage. They're finding ways to make this work based solely off of their high-end talent.

It doesn't have to be this difficult, though. Even with a limited number of sellers, there are shot-makers, versatile stoppers and plug-and-play centers to be found.

It just takes something of value to add them, and that's apparently where the front office has drawn the line. The urgency to act just doesn't seem present, and if that remains the case, this hesitance could come to haunt this organization.

If nothing else, the Lakers are risking taking way too many things for granted. Even a franchise as storied as this one only has star power this bright every so often. The apparent fascination with the future loses sight of what they already have.

Even if James, Dončić and Reaves don't comprise the perfect on-paper core, their combined abilities are obvious and enormous. You'd like to see a stronger push to try to capitalize on that, especially since a third star could be tricky to find once Reaves gets his deserved pay raise.

L.A. has often preferred the long view with Dončić, but a trade-less deadline would be a wasted opportunity. He's clearly ready to win right now—he quarterbacked an NBA Finals run just two seasons back—and he has two legitimate co-stars alongside him.

The Lakers should be actively looking for finishing pieces, because the right defender here and sharpshooter there could be legitimate game-changers if everything clicks. Instead, they seem content with letting all the sand hit the bottom of the hourglass before searching for potential fixes.

It's just the wrong approach. This fixation on the future undersells how promising this present really is—or would be, rather, with enough assistance from the trade market.