The Los Angeles Lakers are on the the many teams looking to make moves prior to this NBA trade deadline. Among the likely candidates to leave town are sixth man Jordan Clarkson and forward Julius Randle.
According to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, the Lakers had received trade offers for the two, including potential first-round pick returns for their services.
“From what I understand, they’ve had offers for Randle and Clarkson,” said Shelburne in an episode of The Lowe Post podcast (via Lakers Outsiders). “They’ve had offers where they could potentially get a first-round pick back, but then you don’t save any money on salary, right? Or you’re cash flat. You get a pick but you’re cash flat. Or maybe save two million instead of, you know, the whole thing. Which means you do one trade now and probably package whatever you got then or you use the draft pick yourself and then you made another trade at the draft. That’s a little more complicated, right? Because you have to pull off it off twice, but I think that’s more where they are right now.”
The Lakers have plenty of youth — enough to entice teams around the league for some high bids for their services. But due to the re-shaping of this roster on expiring contracts, they're now handcuffed to very particular trades as pulling the string too hard could cause a setback for their offseason plans.
Clarkson is averaging a shade under 15 points per game, thanks to the recent absence of Lonzo Ball with an injury. Randle has gotten the chance to log starts as of late, and has responded by averaging 17.2 points and 9.2 rebounds per game in his last five games.
The market is high for a young, dynamic scorer like Clarkson and an athletically-gifted frontcourt player in Randle, who is growing into his game, but Los Angeles will have to tread in low waters for the time being, as one wrong move could be the difference on whether they can sign one or two major free agents this summer.
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