Despite the fact that there have been endless rumors linking the Los Angeles Lakers to a blockbuster trade this season, the truth of the matter is nothing has materialized. It now also seems that they're no closer to getting a deal done as the front office continues to struggle to surround LeBron James with the help he needs to lead LA to the promised land again.

As it turns out, there could be a very good reason behind the Lakers' unwillingness to pull the trigger on a trade. According to NBA inside Howard Beck of Sports Illustrated, LA's brass appears to be inclined to keep their two coveted future first-round picks:

“They obviously are not willing to trade the picks,” Beck said on a recent episode of his podcast (h/t Ashish Mathur of heavy.com). “And I’ve heard rumblings, and they’re only rumblings, so I don’t want people to go too far with this or go crazy with the aggregation, but a couple (of) people around the league have told me in recent weeks that they believe that the front office has essentially been told not to trade the picks, that they’re guarding those.”

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The Lakers don't have too many trade assets at their disposal in terms of personnel. This is why the only way they can get a significant deal done is if they were to include one or both of these aforementioned picks in a potential trade. As it turns out, however, the Lakers seem unwilling to do the same at the moment.

This only means that it isn't likely that LA is going to get a deal done — for now, at least. Whether or not this is the right decision remains to be seen.