The Los Angeles Lakers could be after a pair of familiar targets this February.
In an appearance this week on the Lakers Nation Podcast with Trevor Lane, NBA writer Eric Pincus reported that the Lakers will target Paul George and DeMarcus Cousins at this year’s trade deadline.
“I think Plan A is still LeBron James, and that’s probably gonna be Plan A until LeBron says ‘No,” said Pincus. “But that said, at the deadline, there are two targets they could look at — I don’t think they would get both — but Paul George with the Oklahoma City Thunder … though they’ve sort of figured it out, been climbing in the standings, so I think he may be more of a longshot.
“But the [New Orleans] Pelicans are a different story,” Pincus continued. “They’re just at about .500. … If they don’t climb, they’re looking at [trading] DeMarcus Cousins.”
Both George and Cousins will be free agents after the season. The Lakers also notably registered interest in both players back when the former was with the Indiana Pacers and the latter was with the Sacramento Kings.
Of course, the purple-and-gold have their own in-house issues to deal with right now, and having players sweating out the possibility of being flipped for one of those aforementioned stars at the deadline certainly won’t help any.
