Ranking Last-Minute NBA Trade Deadline Targets for the L.A. Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers won't make the playoffs this year and are a long shot to qualify next season, too. Their first-round pick in the 2017 draft is headed to the Philadelphia 76ers if it lands outside the top three.
Add those two sentences together, and the result is an organization that has no business buying talent at this week's trade deadline.
But that doesn't mean the Lakers shouldn't sniff around for a young, unpolished player who fits their timeline.
Underused and ostensibly overlooked prospects who play on teams with win-now mandates are always helpful; given L.A.'s inability to lure noteworthy free agents these past few summers, this is a secondary path toward finding potential All-Star talent. (Though, admittedly, it's one unlikely to yield results.)
These types of players don't grow on trees, but here's a look at five candidates who fit what the Lakers should be looking for.
5. K.J. McDaniels
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Is there a universe in which the Houston Rockets' K.J. McDaniels is a serviceable NBA player on a quality team? If the answer is yes, the Lakers are in a great place to find out.
Over the last couple of years, McDaniels has struggled to crack the rotation under two separate coaching staffs. That's not good. He can't really shoot, and going back to his time in Philadelphia, he hasn't been able to finish around the basket either. But he's a freak athlete on a friendly contract ($3.5 million team option for next season, per Spotrac.com) who can guard multiple positions and is still only 24 years old.
Wings who've shown they belong in the NBA (even in limited stretches) are increasingly coveted. McDaniels could develop into a reliable rotation player (at least) in Los Angeles. That said, the Lakers shouldn't go out of their way to pry him from the Rockets, a win-now franchise well aware of McDaniels' value.
L.A. is in a position in which low-ball offers are perfectly acceptable.
4. Terrence Jones
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With DeMarcus Cousins now in New Orleans, Terrence Jones' future as a Pelican is very much in doubt. He's on a one-year deal for the veteran's minimum, with the potential for a huge raise on the horizon.
Jones is on the same path as Lakers forward Thomas Robinson, except he's a better, intriguing reclamation project who fits L.A.'s timeline—a low-risk, high-reward gamble. His three-point stroke is a miscalculated catapult in slow motion, but when healthy, Jones is athletic enough to wreak havoc in transition and fly in for athletic finishes around the basket.
For his career, he's shot 69.4 percent within three feet of the rim, per Basketball-Reference.com, a fantastic figure for someone as versatile as Jones.
He can guard wings and stretch forwards and rarely turns the ball over. A productive NBA player lives somewhere inside Jones. And if New Orleans is practically giving him away, the Lakers should pounce at the opportunity to grab him.
3. Jeremy Lamb
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It's fair to characterize Jeremy Lamb's NBA career as a disappointment so far, but he's only 24 years old and has come around a bit this season as a spunky pick-and-roll playmaker who cleans up on the defensive glass and is careful with the rock. He'd be a tricky fit in Lakers coach Luke Walton's pass-happy offense but could slide into Nick Young's role next season if the 31-year-old opts out of his contract and becomes too expensive.
Lamb's length and ball-handling ability would make him a versatile cog on a team that already has a few on deck—most notably Brandon Ingram. In small lineups potentially featuring those two, the Lakers could switch a bunch without suffering on the defensive glass.
The biggest downside would be Lamb's contract: He's guaranteed $14.5 million over the next two seasons, per BasketballInsiders.com. But a trade to L.A. for Lou Williams could work out for everyone involved if Lamb buys into Walton's ideology and finally reaches his potential as a consistent offensive weapon who applies himself on both ends.
2. Denzel Valentine
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Denzel Valentine ranks 387th overall in ESPN.com's real plus-minus. He's a 23-year-old rookie who's only played 400 minutes and is shooting 31.9 percent from the floor. But the Lakers would still be much better off with him than Williams, whom the Chicago Bulls—a team in desperate need of three-point shooting—would trip over to acquire if given the chance.
Valentine would be a terrible fit on the defensive end, next to Jordan Clarkson and D'Angelo Russell, but he should eventually be able to run pick-and-rolls as a secondary creator and won't shoot below 30 percent on open threes, per NBA.com, forever.
In the short-term, Valentine would make L.A. a lot worse than it already is, which is good. He'd also be a semi-intriguing trade chip if the Lakers opt to change course. The Bulls can toss Nikola Mirotic's expiring contract into the deal to make the money work and give L.A. a helpful stretch 4 it may want to keep around for the long haul.
1. Kelly Oubre Jr.
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Unless the Lakers are willing to package several members of their core (Russell, Ingram, Julius Randle, etc.) to try to grab a top-15 player (perhaps Paul George or Jimmy Butler), the No. 1 asset they have to dangle is Williams.
To best figure out their top targets at this year's deadline, look for buyers desperate for some punch off the pine. Tops on that list is Washington. The Wizards are likely capped out for the next few years and don't have much to deal except Kelly Oubre Jr., the 15th overall pick in the 2015 draft.
Oubre just turned 21 in December but has already carved out some room for himself in Scott Brooks' rotation. The question facing the Washington front office is should it go all-in this season and sacrifice Oubre's potential for a known commodity who can definitely help now?
For the Lakers, Oubre would give them even more youth and athleticism on the wing on a rookie-scale deal, and it'd also increase the likelihood they'd get to keep their first-round pick in this year's draft. He's a two-way talent who can guard wings and larger 4s and has the type of offensive upside that should intrigue the L.A. front office.
