Lakers To Acquire Ramon Sessions

1:39pm: The Lakers will also send Jason Kapono to the Cavaliers in the trade, tweets Wojnarowski.

12:32pm: The Lakers and Cavaliers have agreed to a trade that will send Ramon Sessions to Los Angeles for a first-round pick, tweets Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. According to Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal, the Lakers will also receive Christian Eyenga in the deal, and will send Luke Walton to the Cavs. The first-rounder is the Lakers' 2012 pick, and will be top-14 protected (Twitter link). The Cavs also gain the option of swapping the Heat's 2013 first-round pick for the Lakers' '13 first-rounder, depending on which is higher, says Lloyd (Twitter link).

The pairing of the Lakers, who badly needed point guard help, and Sessions, who was stuck behind Kyrie Irving in Cleveland, seemed inevitable for weeks. When I examined Sessions as a trade candidate on February 2nd, I said I could see the Lakers eventually acquiring the point guard for a protected first-round pick.

By trading Walton in the deal, the Lakers avoid having to use their Lamar Odom trade exception to acquire Sessions. That $8.9MM exception is still available for another deal, perhaps for Michael Beasley, who is still drawing interest from L.A., according to Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld (via Twitter).

The price the Cavs pay for adding another first-round pick for this year's draft is taking on Walton, who will be due $6MM+ next season after his trade kicker takes effect. For the Lakers, Sessions holds a player option worth $4.55MM for next season, while Eyenga is still on his rookie contract.

Before making the move for Sessions, the Lakers were discussing D.J. Augustin with the Bobcats, reports Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter).

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