The Los Angeles Lakers did not make any moves at last week’s NBA trade deadline despite badly needing a reshaped roster. The team may have gotten too cheap to make any moves.
The Lakers reportedly turned down the opportunity to trade Russell Westbrook for John Wall. According to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, one version of a Westbrook-for-Wall trade would have involved Christian Wood. But the Lakers reportedly turned that down because they were unwilling to pay extra money.
“There was an iteration of the John Wall trade that included Christian Wood that would have involved more money,” ESPN’s Dave McMenamin said on the Brian Windhorst and the Hoop Collection Podcast. “I’ve been told from other sources in Houston that there was a message that the Lakers were not willing to take on more money.”
ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne added that she heard the Lakers’ attempts to make a trade were more “half-hearted.” She said she heard the team was unwilling to take on more luxury tax money or sacrifice more future picks.
Shelburne believes the Lakers’ front office took the approach that the veterans built the roster as they wanted and that this is their mess to clean up.
The Lakers are 26-31 and they have already sacrificed a huge amount of their draft future in the deal to get Anthony Davis, which helped them win a championship. The Lakers may have decided that this year’s squad was not a team worth sinking more assets into, which probably was a prudent choice, even if they had to take some social media pain.
Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
