Lakers trade Rondo to the Cavaliers in exchange for Valentine The Lakers are expected to cut Valentine to vacate the vacancy
On the final day of 2021, the Lakers reached an agreement with the Cavaliers to complete their first trade of the season. Veteran Rajon Rondo, who played a key role in winning the title in 2020, was sent to Cleveland to fill the gap in Ricky Rubio's season reimbursement and replace him with Denzel Valentine, who was partly guaranteed on his contract.
With more than two months to go before this year's trading deadline, why did the Lakers sell ahead of time now? Why was the first to send away veteran Rondo? What is the logic behind this deal? Is it a prelude to the Lakers' subsequent bigger moves? A series of question marks that need to be answered one by one.
Why do Lakers want to trade?
As of today's deal, the Lakers were seventh in the West with 17 wins and 19 losses, and such a performance was certainly completely failing as a team that aimed for a championship before the start of the season.
The introduction of Russell Westbrook in a three-for-one has proven to be a failed deal, and although the all-time triple-double has averaged 19.7 points, 8.1 rebounds and 8.3 assists so far this season, it has not played the role the team expected him to play, and all previous concerns have been confirmed.
Because of this deal, the Lakers locked up the salary space, and could only rely on a bunch of base salary contracts to complete the filling of the lineup, and the degree of fault tolerance was extremely limited. Coupled with continuous injury blows, the whole team is full of mistakes and omissions, allowing the 37-year-old Zhan to attack with all his might, still can not guarantee a 50% win rate, if it were not for the overall decline in the West this year, it would have fallen to the lottery area long ago.
So the Lakers want to trade, there is no suspense in itself, the key is, why trade now?
In the deal with the Cavaliers, the Lakers sent Rondo back to Valentine, and according to internal sources, the Lakers are expected to cut Valentine's non-guarantee contract after the trade, vacating a regular lineup.
This season, the NBA has been hit by the new crown epidemic, and a large number of players have triggered health and safety agreements and cannot play. In order to ensure the normal progress of the season as much as possible, the NBA adjusted the rules, expanded the scope of use of difficult exceptions, and a large number of firefighters were summoned, resulting in a record number of "mobile personnel" in the league.
The Lakers also had a number of players trigger health and safety agreements, forced to use difficult exceptions to sign Thomas Jr. (later abandoned), Darren Collison, Stanley Johnson and others, but as the quarantine players have returned from suspension, the team is faced with personnel options.
Johnson performed well after signing the Lakers, averaging 7.7 points and 3 rebounds per game, effectively filling the lack of defensive ability in the forward line, and a number of insiders revealed that one of the purposes of the Lakers to send Rondo away was to make room for Johnson.
Can Johnson continue his recent good performance? How much of a difference can he bring to this Lakers? There are still great doubts. But the Lakers realized their mistake and started trying to fix it, which is a sure fact. Coupled with the Cavaliers' personnel needs due to sudden injuries, the two sides hit it off and reached this deal, which is very easy to understand.
Why do the Lakers trade Rondo?
With Rondo's role in the Lakers this season and his limited playing time, his send-off wasn't a particularly surprising decision.
Before this outbreak, Rondo had actually basically fallen out of Vogel's regular rotation. So far, the former All-Star point guard has averaged only 16.1 minutes of playing time per game, 3.1 points, 2.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists, and shot only 32.4 percent from the field, a career-low.
What's more fatal is that according to the statistics provided by the NBA official website: when Rondo is not on the court this season, the Lakers' 100-round scoring performance is 10.1 points higher than when he was on the court, which is basically in line with our perception. The playoff version of Rondo has created a huge surprise for the Lakers, but looking like he is about to turn 36, how many chances do he have to recreate the magic of two years ago?
Therefore, although it is emotionally difficult to accept, the Lakers want to open a knife to the existing lineup, and Rondo is naturally one of the first targets to be put on the chopping board.
Over the past two seasons, Lakers management seems to have been superstitious about the past achievements of players, and after winning championships in 2020 with the help of veterans such as Rondo and Howard, they reshuffled their lineup to replace Howard with another future Hall of Famer, Mark Gasol, and just a few months later, they abandoned Xiao Jia and signed former All-Star Andre Drummond.
This offseason, the Lakers have intensified, once having 7 former All-Stars at the same time, not long ago, they added Thomas Jr. to this list.
But after a series of lessons from their failures, The Rob Pelinkas should have realized that the fame of the players alone would not bring the championship, so they began to turn the course around and take the pragmatic route. In fact, Rondo may not be the only "big name" that the Lakers want to send away right now, and there have been rumors recently that they are considering cutting Jordan Jr.
Just at this time, Rubio suffered a serious injury season reimbursement, see the playoffs hope that the Cavaliers want to remain competitive, look at Rondo, Rondo himself also hopes to change the environment, play a greater role, the Lakers are happy to push the boat to send personal feelings - Cavaliers, Lakers, Rondo, a transaction three parties benefit, can be described as a big joy.
What does it mean for the Lakers to trade Rondo?
The Lakers trade Rondo and have three direct gains.
First, with the deal, the Lakers would save $3.7 million in wages and luxury tax expenses (if the Lakers cut Valentine, the non-guaranteed part of his contract could be removed from the payroll). And if the Lakers simply give up Rondo and sign a base-paid player, both people's contracts will be included in the salary book, and they will pay about $3.1 million more in luxury taxes;
Second, through this deal, the Lakers can also get a special case of the difference between Rondo and Valentine's annual salary, worth about $1.7 million;
Finally, as mentioned earlier, after the deal, if the Lakers cut Valentine, it will free up a guaranteed contract place to increase flexibility for subsequent adjustments (whether or not Johnson is converted).
Sending Rondo to make room for Johnson is only the most superficial reason for the Lakers' deal, although Johnson has performed well in recent games, and he has more room to play in this Lakers lineup than Rondo, who overlaps with Westbrook's position, but given his entire career resume (especially the 29.7% three-point shooting rate), it is still not worthy of complete trust.
So there is a high probability that the Lakers will not immediately sign a formal contract with Johnson, but will renew a second short contract (according to the regulations they can do this) to see the after-effects. As for another short-contract player, Darren Collison, he basically faces a similar situation.
Although Rondo did not perform well on the court, he was widely respected in the locker room, and simply sending him away would not make the Lakers better. Similarly, signing Johnson with the roster gap left by the trade Rondo is also relatively limited help to the Lakers. The real concern of this deal is whether it means a larger trading move by the Lakers.
What the Lakers want to change most is, of course, not Rondo, but Wei Shao, but his contract is too large, and it is difficult to find the next home. In addition to the Big Three, the only real trading chips in the Lakers squad may be Horton Tucker, Kendrick Nine (the only two non-base salary players outside the Big Three), and a 2027 first-round pick.
Nunn has not yet made his season debut due to a right knee injury, tucker with poor on-court performances, the value of the deal has continued to decline, but the 2027 first round pick, given the age of James, Westbrook and other superstars, may eventually become very valuable.
But are the Lakers ready for a "stud"? It's hard to judge right now. Recently, two ESPN celebrities, Brian Windhorst and Bobby Marks, mentioned when participating in the show to discuss the trading options facing the Lakers that the Lakers have different opinions on whether to use the first round of signings in 2027 as a trading chip.
It is extremely difficult for the Lakers to completely correct their past mistakes and completely solve the current problems. But any time they want to solve a problem, the first thing to do is to face the problem, and trading Rondo is the first step they take.