All Ball Sports: To trade or not to trade? No good options
by Paul Teetor
Nine months ago, when it was becoming clear the Lakers were not going to make the playoffs for the second time in LeBron James’ first four years here, All Ball wrote a column urging the Lakers to trade LeBron.
That column got more responses – ranging from “you’re so right” to “you’re so effing crazy” – than anything written before or since in this space.
This week, to our amazement, LeBron appeared to agree with us.
“I don’t want to finish my career playing at this level from a team aspect,” he said after another dispiriting loss, this time to the Miami Heat Wednesday night. “Playing basketball at this level just to be playing basketball is not in my DNA.”
Then he drove his point home. And remember, LeBron doesn’t say anything publicly without weighing its impact: “I know what I can still bring to any ballclub with the right pieces.”
In other words, he made it as clear as he could without screaming “Get me some help or get me outta here!” that he wants to be on a team capable of winning an NBA championship.
And right now that ain’t the Lakers.
Not even close.
Our case for trading him last April was the same as our case for trading him today. The only thing that has changed is that LeBron has put the Lakers on notice that they better either bring in some guys good enough to help him win a title or send him somewhere else where he can win a title with a new team.
Despite all the optimistic blather coming from the Lakers front office and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media, the Lakers are going nowhere in terms of being a genuine championship contender. They are currently in 13th place in the 15-team Western Division, with a record of 14-21.
When you put the Lakers roster under a microscope, Lebron is the one tradable asset that could bring back the kind of high draft picks that they desperately need to start their long overdue rebuild.
There are several teams that would instantly become legit championship contenders – Philadelphia, Cleveland, Orlando, Denver – by adding LeBron to their roster and sending back a bunch of draft picks and some non-star players.
Since the Lakers have already traded away all their own first round picks in this decade except for the 2027 and 2029 picks, they desperately need to replace the picks they traded away to get Anthony Davis from New Orleans back in the summer of 2019.
Davis himself has no real trade value now because he’s seemingly always hurt. He’s missed more than half the Lakers games since the 2020 season and he’s currently out “indefinitely” with a foot injury. TNT analyst Charles Barkley nailed the problem with Davis perfectly when he gave him the nickname “Street Clothes” because he always seems to be watching the Lakers games from the bench while wearing torn jeans, a hoodie and an apathetic scowl.
And of course no team is willing to pay Russell Westbrook – their alleged “third star” — more than the league’s minimum salary, and certainly not the insane $47 million the Lakers are paying him this year. He’s untradable without the two draft picks as a sweetener.
The alternative to a blockbuster LeBron trade: sticking with LeBron for the next two years of his contract and a rerun of the last years of the Kobe Bryant experience. Back then all eyes were on Kobe as he set all kinds of career records and ended up as the fourth leading scorer in NBA history. Never mind that the team itself was awful and didn’t even make the playoffs for his last four years in a purple and gold uniform. Just come and see the Kobe show.
LeBron is now on track to pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the leading scorer in league history sometime in the next few months, and the Lakers have not missed a chance to hype that big event looming on the horizon.
But if and when it happens, it will trigger a 24-hour media blitz and then the Lakers will go back to their usual formula: One step forward and two steps back.
Indeed, owner Jeannie Buss, General Manager Rob Pelinka, “consultants” Kurt and Linda Rambis and the rest of the clown car crew running the Lakers into the ground appear satisfied with the status quo – or maybe they’re just paralyzed into inaction — and are showing no signs of making any significant changes.
They can’t get LeBron any serious help because other teams are demanding one or both of the 2027 and 2029 first round draft picks in order to take on Westbrook’s hideous contract and hideous game in exchange for a good player.
So far, they have refused to package those two draft picks with Westbrook despite LeBron and his agent, Rich Paul, demanding that they do so.
That’s why this week’s LeBron explosion was so important: he’s finally saying publicly what he’s been saying privately ever since it became clear that the Westbrook trade was a disaster.
It was a horrible trade on two fronts: it shipped out their championship core from 2020 – Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Montrezl Harrell – and it brought back an over-the-hill, petulant, entitled Westbrook who has single-handedly destroyed whatever chemistry the LeBron Lakers once had.
But it makes sense that the Lakers are finally saying no to LeBron: he was the one who demanded they give up their future for Davis – which at least resulted in the 2020 Bubble-Pandemic championship – and that they go out and get Westbrook.
Westbrook was so bad last year that new coach Darvin Ham finally demoted him this season to leader of the bench crew. Now the typical Lakers game goes like this: LeBron plays great in the first quarter, takes most of the shots, and leads his team to an early lead. Then Westbrook comes in and plays with LeBron for a few minutes before LeBron is subbed out to get a rest.
Then Westbrook takes over, hogs the ball, continually bull-rushes the basket, takes any kind of crazy shot he wants, and the crowd watches the early lead evaporate. Then LeBron comes back in and the cycle begins again. And at the end of most games, LeBron is too tired to drag his team over the finish line.
As if to back up his declaration that “I know what I can still bring to any ball club with the right pieces,” LeBron went out two nights later on his 38th birthday and put on a show by scoring 47 points, grabbing 15 rebounds and handing out 11 assists. For one night at least he was playing with the force and energy of a 22-year-old LeBron. On one memorable play he attacked the basket, missed a flip shot, tumbled out of bounds on his back, leaped up and in one motion beat everyone else to the loose ball and hit a stick-back as he got fouled. As the crowd went nuts, he pounded on his chest, indicating that his heart and desire was still as great as it was in his heyday.
After the game, he hinted that if the Lakers don’t resolve this impossible situation – either trade him or get him some serious help – he may lose that kind of energy and desire, which is all the Lakers really have to offer in exchange for those $2,500 courtside seats.
“I’m a winner and I want to win….so we’ll see what happens and see how fresh my mind stays over the next couple of years,” he said.
Gulp!
That’s a threat the Lakers need to take seriously. So far Jeannie, Rob and company have been silent after his most recent outburst.
But the season is almost half over and silence is not going to work, nor is it going to prevent LeBron from making a public demand to be traded.
If that worst-case-scenario happens, the Lakers will lose whatever leverage they still have in trying to get a good return for LeBron, because other teams will know that the Lakers have to make a trade and they will surely lowball them.
After all, LeBron is now 38 years old and is not just another great player. When a team takes him on, they are taking on the same kind of problems the Lakers have been dealing with for almost five years now: a guy who demands a say in the team’s decisions, who comes with an agent known as a high maintenance guy, and is a ball-dominant point forward who will take over the team’s offense no matter what the coach says.
There are only two options – trade him or keep him – and at this point they are both bad options.
That leaves only one smart play: start the LeBron auction and hope that some team is crazy enough to offer a bushel basket of first round draft picks – you know, like the Lakers did back in 2019 to get Anthony Davis.
Let the bidding begin. Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. Follow: @paulteetor. ER