Dec. 15 marked the unofficial start of the NBA’s trade season.
As of Sunday, many free agents signed over the 2024 offseason became eligible to be traded. The league already saw two trades happen — Thomas Bryant from Miami to Indiana and Dennis Schröder from Brooklyn to Golden State — to shore up playoff hopefuls decimated with injuries at specific positions.
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The Los Angeles Lakers are expected to be one of the more active buyers leading into the Feb. 6 trade deadline as they try to maximize the final seasons of the LeBron James–Anthony Davis partnership.
Los Angeles is currently 14-12, tied for ninth in the Western Conference, and 22nd in net rating. The Lakers clearly need to make multiple upgrades to have a shot at actualizing the championship aspirations vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka and coach JJ Redick laid out at the beginning of the season.
Yet, as their quiet 2024 trade deadline and offseasons showed, the Lakers’ activity doesn’t always translate to action. In the coming weeks, they will have to be more open to using their draft capital to substantially improve their roster.
Let’s dive into some questions and topics that will dominate discussions ahead of the deadline.
Are the Lakers likely to make a move?
Yes. At least that’s the operating assumption around the league. However, the magnitude of the move is unclear given the uncertainty of how much draft capital the Lakers are willing to use in a trade, according to team and league sources.
It’s worth noting that many expected the Lakers to make a move last season ahead of the trade deadline, and they stood pat. The closest they got was talks with Atlanta for Dejounte Murray, though Atlanta’s insistence on Austin Reaves being in the trade was a sticking point at the time for the Lakers, as The Athletic previously reported.
Pelinka said at media day that he wanted to evaluate the team after the 30-game mark. The Lakers play their 30th game of the season on Christmas Day at Golden State. The Lakers’ recent skid — they’ve lost eight of 12 games — hasn’t exactly been a ringing endorsement for investing in this group. The results in the next few weeks will determine how much pressure is on the front office to upgrade this roster.
As has become the recent league-wide trend, there project to be more buyers than sellers on the trade market. That can drive up the prices from sellers for quality starters and high-level role players, as it did last trade deadline. With that said, the Warriors giving up three second-round picks for Schröder, who is having a career year statistically, could signify a shift toward that caliber of player going for multiple second-round picks rather than a first-round pick, according to league sources.
Who are realistic trade targets?
Similar to last season, the Lakers believe they have three positional needs at the trade deadline:
A tough, physical, defensive-minded center.
A big 3-and-D wing who complements Davis and James as a starter/closer.
A big, quick, athletic guard with point-of-attack defensive capabilities.
And similar to last season, it’s going to be difficult to address all three needs with one move — and without giving up both their 2029 and 2031 first-round picks.
The buzziest name in league circles, who’s been attached to the Lakers dating back to the summer, is Washington Wizards center Jonas Valančiūnas ($9.9 million salary this season). He checks the box of a big, bruising, physical center, though his defensive mobility is limited and he can be targeted on that end (as the Lakers did twice in high-stakes games to close the 2023-24 regular season and in the Play-In game).
Valančiūnas is averaging 12.0 points (55.8 percent shooting), 7.6 rebounds and 0.8 blocks in 19.7 minutes per game with the Wizards. He’s started 833 of his 880 career games but has only started six of 24 games for the Wizards this season.
Valančiūnas was on James’ list of players he’d be willing to take a pay cut for over the offseason, as The Athletic reported over the summer, signifying how highly James viewed him as a conceivable fit. Shortly after, Redick mentioned the Lakers’ need for a brutish, physical big man. Davis has long wanted more reliable center help alongside him in the frontcourt.
The Brooklyn Nets, who are currently in the Play-In mix in the East, are looking to trade parts of their core to prioritize their future. After trading Schröder, Brooklyn is expected to make wings Cam Johnson ($22.5 million but with a likely cap hit of $27 million) and Dorian Finney-Smith ($14.9 million) available — and much sooner than the Feb. 6 deadline. Both have been tied to the Lakers for months. The Lakers have been interested in Finney-Smith for at least a couple of years.
As The Athletic has previously reported, a Lakers move is more likely later in January or early in February leading into the deadline, allowing Los Angeles more time to evaluate the roster and see if injured players like Jarred Vanderbilt and Christian Wood can plug some of the holes within the rotation. But it appears that, if the Lakers make a move on the sooner end, trading for Valančiūnas, Johnson and/or Finney-Smith would be the most realistic exceptions.
Other names that have come up in talks with team and league personnel over the past few weeks include Utah’s Walker Kessler and Collin Sexton, Toronto’s Bruce Brown Jr., Portland’s Jerami Grant and Robert Williams III and Washington’s Kyle Kuzma. The Lakers are not anticipated to be heavily in the mix for Miami’s Jimmy Butler, New Orleans’ Brandon Ingram or Chicago’s Zach LaVine.
The Lakers have a recent history of covertly navigating the trade market. It can’t be ruled out they make a trade for a player and/or with a team that no one sees coming.
Which Lakers players are eligible to be traded?
The entire 15-man roster is eligible to be traded this season.
James became eligible to be traded on Dec. 15. He is one of two players in the NBA with a no-trade clause, meaning he’s in charge of his future.
Max Christie will become eligible to be traded on Jan. 15. Otherwise, the other 13 players can be traded immediately.
Are any players untouchable?
Two players who almost certainly won’t be traded, barring them asking out of Los Angeles, are Davis ($43.2 million) and James ($48.7 million).
Despite the recent groundswell from certain media and fans to blow up the roster, the Lakers are not currently considering trading either superstar, according to team and league sources. They want to bolster their supporting cast and continue building around Davis and James.
Of course, Bronny James ($1.2 million) would not be included in a trade that doesn’t include LeBron, team and league sources told The Athletic.
The Lakers continue to have a high bar for trading Reaves ($13 million) considering his importance as the third option and his team-friendly contract (he’s making less than $27 million combined over the next two seasons before likely opting out in 2026). Similarly, rookie Dalton Knecht ($3.8 million) and Max Christie ($7.1 million) are two players the Lakers view as longer-term core pieces.
Which players are likely to be traded?
The Lakers have four medium-sized contracts — D’Angelo Russell ($18.7 million), Rui Hachimura ($17.0 million), Gabe Vincent ($11 million) and Vanderbilt ($10.7 million) — that will be the foundation of any trade requiring double-digit outgoing salary.
Redick and Pelinka have both spoken highly of Hachimura, often implying they view him as a longer-term piece and that he’d be the least likely of that group to be moved. The Lakers tried to trade Russell ahead of the 2024 trade deadline and this past offseason after he opted into his player option but couldn’t find any suitors. Vincent has been playing better lately but has underwhelmed offensively as the Lakers’ Schröder replacement. Vanderbilt is currently out with left knee effusion after missing the start of the season because of offseason surgeries on both feet.
The Lakers didn’t pick up the third-year option on Jalen Hood-Schifino ($3.9 million), which is rare for a player drafted as high as the Lakers selected him in 2023 (No. 17). That sets him up as an expiring contract and a potential low-risk gamble for an opposing front office.
There is also a chance the Lakers use a smaller contract, like Wood ($3 million), Cam Reddish ($2.5 million) or Maxwell Lewis ($1.9 million) as a matching salary in a deal or to clear a roster spot.
What will teams want from the Lakers?
The same things they wanted last season: Reaves and first-round picks.
The Lakers have three first-round picks they can trade individually: 2029, 2030 or 2031. If they want to use more than one first-round pick, they can trade the 2029 and 2031 first-round picks (and not the 2030 first).
They also have years of swap rights (2026, 2028 and 2030, depending on how they use the 2029 and 2031 first-round picks) and five second-round picks to trade (2025, 2027, 2030, 2031 and the LA Clippers’ 2025 second-round pick). The Lakers will likely offer a pick swap or second(s) in place of one of their picks in negotiations.
Rival teams will surely ask for Knecht and Christie, but again, those are two players the Lakers will prioritize keeping. Teams will also likely sniff around on James and Davis, seeing if they can try to pry them away from Los Angeles with an enticing offer of picks and young talent.
What are the Lakers’ financial and roster constraints?
The Lakers have a full roster with 15 players with guaranteed contracts, meaning they can’t take back more players than they send out in a trade. If they make a multi-player deal and temporarily dip below 14 players, they’d have two weeks to return to the league’s 14-player minimum.
Los Angeles also can’t take back more salary than it sends out, which is a limiting factor in any potential deal. Depending on the estimation, the Lakers are between $30,000 to $45,000 under the collective bargaining agreement’s second apron, giving them little wiggle room financially. They will not go above the second apron.
(Top photo of Rob Pelinka and Anthony Davis: Mark Ralston / AFP via Getty Images)