On February 10, Beijing time, the Lakers lost 103-105 to the Blazers on the road in the NBA regular season, suffering a wave of 2 consecutive losses. After the game, the Lakers' locker room atmosphere fell to the freezing point, and less than 24 hours before the trade deadline, the Lakers' hopes for this season were pinned on trades and lineup adjustments.
According to Scotto, the Lakers, Knicks and Raptors are discussing a three-way deal involving Tucker, Redish and Dragic, and the specific transaction plan is as follows:
Lakers: Get Redish, Burks
Knicks: Get Dragic and some draft picks
Raptors: Get Horton Tucker, and Noel. (In addition, Scotto also added to the Lakers' Nunn is also likely to be added to the deal negotiations.)
Before losing the game to the Blazers, the outside world generally believed that the "bane" of the Lakers was Wei Shao, but in this game, Wei Shao was absent for the first time in this game, the Lakers made 21 mistakes, were directly snatched by the opponent 15 times, and were used by the opponent to get 24 points in a fast attack. After the previous loss to the Bucks, the Lakers reporter broke the news: the Lakers' locker room generally believes that if the current lineup continues this season, it will be difficult to go further, and it seems that the trade has become the only hope.
As we all know, the Lakers can provide a very limited amount of chips for the trade, Westbrook has an annual salary of 44.21 million, but his performance is very crotchy, it is difficult to shoot, according to the famous Stein report: Unless the Lakers are willing to give away the first round of the draft in 2027, the Rockets will not agree to the deal between Wall and Westbrook to swap owners. In this way, the Lakers' last hope can only be pinned on the incomplete Tucker and the nun who has not played a game.
Fortunately, Tucker shot 4 three-pointers against the Blazers, got 14 points, 3 rebounds and 7 assists, which is also a little bit worthwhile. If the Lakers can get Redish and Burks in this three-way deal, it is also a good reinforcement. At present, the Knicks have no non-selling products except Barrett, Reddish has a good defensive ability, but he has not been given a performance opportunity in the Hawks and Knicks, averaging only 4 points and 1.4 rebounds per game this season, but his average data last season is 11.9 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1 steal, he can give vitality to the Lakers forward; Burks has averaged 11.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.1 steals this season, shooting 38.2% from the field. With a three-point shooting percentage of 38.8 percent, Burks is a guard with autonomous offensive ability, and the defense is not too bad, which can provide vitality for the Lakers on the bench.
Overall, if you can't trade Westbrook, this may be the most promising deal for the Lakers, and it is also the Lakers' only chance this season, so I want to say: whether it works or not, try it, anyway, this is definitely not going to work now.