Could LA keep all of its trade deadline acquisitions?
Your Los Angeles Lakers made significant roster overhauls in this year’s NBA trade deadline. The Lakers added six new players while getting rid of six players, plus their 2027 first-round pick (top four protected) and 2029 second-round pick.
From the six players they acquired, point guard D’Angelo Russell will be an unrestricted free agent after the 2023 campaign, forward Rui Hachimura will be a restricted free agent, and shooting guard Malik Beasley has a team option.
It’ll be tough for LA to retain all the players they traded for, even if things go as planned in the remainder of the season. Thus far, this Lakers team makes sense with the pieces they acquired, and one GM believes it will be LA’s priority to pay all of those guys.
“They would never have given up that pick unless they planned to make some long-term investments,” one GM told Heavy Sports. “They were willing to trade it but they needed some guys just heading into their primes to convince them to give it up. Now they’ve got (D’Angelo) Russell, they’ve got (Jarred) Vanderbilt, they’ve got Malik Beasley, plus (Rui) Hachimura, Austin Reaves. We’ll see what they do with Mo Bamba, too.
“That’s a base of young players that they did not have before, you know, guys who are mid-20s (in age). They’re going to keep those guys in place. They’re all in on paying those guys.”
The Lakers got far younger and more talented than they were just a couple of weeks ago, but could they keep the talent they traded for?
Russell is the biggest name they acquired; he is a former All-Star and was the Lakers original draft pick from the 2015 draft.
The 27-year-old is in the final year of a four-season, $117 million deal that he signed as part of a sign-and-trade with the Golden State Warriors.
Russell has been above average throughout his career, but with guys like Fred VanVleet and Kyrie Irving on the open market, the chances of D-Lo staying a Laker might not be too high.
Beasley could very well be the best shooter the Lakers have had since Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and that says a lot. Beasley is coming off his best game as a Laker, and if he could keep it up, the Lakers may not have any choice but to put up his option.
Hachimura has been solid for the purple and gold. He’s played in 12 games, starting in eight, and even though his minutes are up, the rest of his numbers are down. However, that is the case whenever you’re playing with LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
I would be OK with keeping those three players beyond this season, but that will be up to the Lakers brass this offseason. Hopefully, we can only worry about that once we’re closer to summertime.
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