Los Angeles Lakers Rumors | Hoops Rumors

“Everyone Is Watching Chicago” For Potential Trades

December 12th, 2022 at 9:57am CST by Arthur Hill

Rival teams are monitoring the Bulls on the NBA’s trade market, a source tells Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report.

There’s speculation that Chicago, which is sitting outside the Eastern Conference play-in race at 11-15, could dismantle its current roster in hopes of landing a high draft pick, Pincus explains. The team owes this year’s first-rounder to the Magic as part of the Nikola Vucevic trade unless it lands a top-four pick in the lottery. Pincus notes that there are five teams with eight wins or fewer, so if the Bulls plan to pursue that strategy they need to start soon.

“Everyone is watching Chicago very closely,” an NBA source told Pincus. “They’re so poorly constructed, they need to blow it up.”

Pincus cites a recent rumor that the Lakers might be willing to part with their first-round picks in 2027 and 2029, along with Russell Westbrook as a buyout candidate, in exchange for Vucevic and DeMar DeRozan. That move would put the Bulls in position to tank and would give the franchise two valuable draft assets for the future.

Pincus sees that as a better route than losing this year’s first-rounder to Orlando and trying to re-sign Vucevic when he becomes a free agent next summer. That would leave Chicago with just its mid-level exception, plus smaller trades, to try to upgrade the roster.

Zach LaVine could also be a trade candidate once he becomes eligible on January 15, Pincus adds. There hasn’t been much talk about LaVine yet in trade circles, but Pincus believes the Bulls would find plenty of interest if they make him available. LaVine signed a five-year, $215MM contract in July.

Trade Market Heating Up For Kyle Kuzma

December 12th, 2022 at 8:57am CST by Arthur Hill

There’s plenty of interest in Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma as the NBA’s unofficial trade season begins this week, according to Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report.

Pincus cautions that Washington hasn’t decided to move Kuzma, but there’s a risk he’ll leave in free agency next summer if he declines his $13MM player option for 2023/24 as expected. General manager Tommy Sheppard recently indicated that the Wizards intend to re-sign Kuzma, but Pincus points out that the team already has two established scorers in Bradley Beal and Kristaps Porzingis and is off to an 11-16 start.

Pincus adds that Kuzma could be one of the five best players on the free agent market and may become too expensive for Washington to keep.

“He wants out,” an NBA source said told Pincus. “He’s looking for over $20 million a season and in a big market (or with a contender).”

Pincus cites the Kings, who tried to trade for Kuzma in 2021 before the Lakers sent him to the Wizards, as a team to watch. Sacramento can’t unconditionally offer a first-rounder earlier than their 2028 pick, but Pincus believes a deal could be constructed around Harrison Barnes and either that future pick or a young prospect such as Davion Mitchell.

The Suns may see a Kuzma trade as a chance to finally unload Jae Crowder, Pincus notes, suggesting Crowder and Cameron Johnson, who is recovering from knee surgery, may be enough to get a deal done. Johnson will be a restricted free agent next summer, which would allow the Wizards to match any offer he might get.

Pincus also believes the Knicks have interest in Kuzma, who is represented by CAA, the former agency of team president Leon Rose. Obi Toppin could be the centerpiece of a deal, according to Pincus, who adds that New York has young players such as Immanuel Quickley and Cam Reddish to offer, along with a wealth of draft assets.

Ham Has Quickly Gained Trust In Reaves

December 11th, 2022 at 7:01pm CST by Dana Gauruder

“I’m not concerned about anybody in the West,” Green said. “There are good teams in the West, have the appropriate fear as (Warriors) coach (Steve) Kerr always talks about — Phoenix is one of those teams. I’ve been telling everybody for two years now, I’m not counting the Lakers out … but I don’t worry about anybody in the West. … I know if we’re playing our A game, nobody’s beating us.”

Lakers first-year coach Darvin Ham has gained a lot of trust in guard Austin Reaves‘ decision making and defensive acumen, according to Kyle Goon of the Orange County Register. “He has all of my faith and the faith of the coaching staff in the sense whenever he’s in the game and has the ball in his hands, he’s going to make the right play on both sides of the ball,” Ham said. Reaves will be a restricted free agent after the season.

Pacific Notes: Wall, Booker, Green, Westbrook

December 10th, 2022 at 2:58pm CST by Luke Adams

Having previously contemplated suicide amid a series of personal tragedies, Clippers guard John Wall is in a much better place now as he prepares for his D.C. homecoming on Saturday night, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. Describing the basketball court as his “sanctuary,” Wall said he believes he still has a lot left in the tank.

“(If) the money and all that s–t go out the window, I could come here and play the game I love,” he said. “… Just being here around the guys, in an environment where I know I’m on a team, that calms a lot of it out.”

As Youngmisuk details, tonight will be the first time since his last home game as a Wizard in December 2018 that Wall has played in front of fans in Washington. He returned to the city as a Rocket during the 2020/21 season, but no fans were in attendance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The veteran point guard, who bought 50 tickets for the game, told Youngmisuk that it will be an “emotional” night for him.

Here’s more from around the Pacific:

Suns guard Devin Booker is considered day-to-day due to left hamstring tightness, head coach Monty Williams said today, per Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. With Phoenix in a three-game losing streak and another showdown with the Pelicans on tap for Sunday, Booker will presumably do his best not to miss any time.
Tweaking the rotation to ensure that Draymond Green is playing with the second unit might go down as the move that saved the Warriors‘ season, writes Kendra Andrews of ESPN. As Andrews outlines, Golden State had been attempting to find ways for its young players to emulate Green, but ultimately decided that Green himself was the only player capable of filling that role alongside the reserves.
Kyle Goon of The Southern California News Group checks in on how Russell Westbrook has settled into his reserve role, suggesting that the Lakers guard seems comfortable with his place in the rotation after coming off the bench for the last 21 games.

Bulls Not Interested In Trading For Russell Westbrook

December 10th, 2022 at 1:35pm CST by Luke Adams

The Bulls have no interest in acquiring Russell Westbrook from the Lakers, even if it means adding multiple draft picks, a source tells Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. While Cowley doesn’t explicitly say so, this report appears to be a response to the rumor about the Lakers internally discussing whether Chicago might become open to the idea of moving DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic for Westbrook and draft assets. Cowley acknowledges that the Bulls’ thinking could change before the February trade deadline, but says the focus for now is getting Lonzo Ball back and pushing for a playoff spot.

LeBron, AD Expected To Play On Friday

December 9th, 2022 at 3:01pm CST by Luke Adams

The Lakers should have their two superstars back on Friday night in Philadelphia. LeBron James missed Wednesday’s game in Toronto to rest his sore right ankle, but he’ll be available on Friday, sources tell Dave McMenamin of ESPN (Twitter link). Anthony Davis, who left Tuesday’s game in Cleveland with a non-COVID illness and remained out on Wednesday, is listed as probable to play on Friday, McMenamin adds.

Pacific Notes: Okogie, JTA, Lakers, Fox

December 8th, 2022 at 7:33pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

The Suns‘ last three games have represented reserve swingman Josh Okogie‘s three highest minutes totals of the season, and his doing his darnedest to capitalize on the extended run time, per Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports.

Okogie has gotten a bigger minutes load as a result to a variety of injuries up and down Phoenix’s roster. With Cameron Johnson and Torrey Craig both absent, Okogie has averaged 16.3 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 3.7 APG, 1.7 SPG, and a +14.7 plus-minus rating, in 25.7 MPG.

Bourguet notes that Okogie has especially shined defensively, a reality he himself has noticed and acknowledged.

“For me, it was just more so, like, ‘I’m not gonna get on the court scoring,’ you know what I’m saying?” Okogie said. “’Cause we had so many people who could do that on the team. So he needed me to be on the court to play some defense and lock somebody up.”

There’s more out of California:

Lakers backup small forward Juan Toscano-Anderson exited the team’s 126-113 loss to the Raptors last night with a sprained right ankle. According to Jovan Buha of The Athletic (Twitter link), the team announced that Toscano-Anderson is expected to miss at least the next two weeks due to the injury, and will be reevaluated at that two-week mark.
Following an exciting 8-2 run that seemed to salvage the Lakers‘ 2022/23 season, the team more recently has dropped two straight contests thanks to the injury absences of Anthony Davis (who played just eight minutes in the first loss), LeBron James (who only missed last night’s loss) and Wenyen Gabriel (who missed both games). Buha writes in a story for The Athletic that it has become evident the team needs additional help up front.
Kings star point guard De’Aaron Fox has been hampered by pain in his right foot for over a month, according to Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. Fox’s shooting has taken a hit of late: across his past seven contests, the vet has made just 38.2% of his field goals and just 28.6% of his triples. According to Fox, there’s no risk of making the injury worse by playing, so he’s hoping to get used to tolerating it. “I’ve played well while it was hurting, so I’ll be fine,” he said.

Lakers Discussed A Deal Recently With Knicks

December 8th, 2022 at 1:45pm CST by Rory Maher

The Lakers, Heat and Bucks are among the teams that have expressed interest in Reddish since the Knicks acquired him from the Hawks in January, though that interest isn’t necessarily recent, according to Ian Begley of SNY.tv. Begley also reports that that the Lakers and Knicks explored a deal this month that “would have required a third team to complete,” but it’s unclear if those talks involved Reddish.

And-Ones: Projected Taxpayers, Parity, Sovereign Funds, Scola

December 8th, 2022 at 10:30am CST by Luke Adams

The Warriors, Clippers, and Nets are the three teams projected to pay a nine-figure luxury bill in 2023, according to Eric Pincus of Sports Business Classroom. In his roundup of each team’s proximity to the tax line, Pincus has Golden State’s tax bill estimated at $176.5MM, with L.A. at $144.7MM and Brooklyn at approximately $109MM.

The 2021/22 campaign represented a record-setting year for luxury tax payments, with the Warriors, Nets, and Clippers heading up seven taxpayers that were penalized a total of $481MM, by far a single-season NBA high.

However, as Pincus outlines, NBA teams are on track to smash that record in 2022/23, with the Bucks ($69.8MM), Celtics ($66MM), Lakers ($40.6MM), Mavericks ($33.6MM), Suns ($32.6MM), Nuggets ($17.6MM), and Sixers ($1.8MM) joining the three aforementioned clubs to total over $692MM in projected tax payments.

That number will likely dip a little before the end of the season, with certain teams trading some salary to reduce their end-of-season bill and others – such as Philadelphia – perhaps trying to get out of tax territory altogether. But it seems safe to assume the teams that finish the season below the tax line will still see a major windfall.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

There’s more parity than ever at the one-quarter mark of the 2022/23 NBA season, according to Howard Beck of SI.com, who breaks down the numbers on the glut of teams hovering around .500 and explores several theories from people around the league about why parity might be on the rise.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst takes a closer look at the NBA’s rule change allowing sovereign wealth funds to purchase minority stakes in NBA franchises, which we briefly covered last week. Under the new policy, a foreign fund could buy up to 20% of a team, though any such purchase would be “subject to significant vetting,” sources tell Windhorst. There are currently no sales to sovereign funds under review by the league, Windhorst adds.
In an interesting piece for The Athletic, Mike Vorkunov speaks to Luis Scola about the veteran NBA forward’s transition from longtime player to team owner. Scola, who appeared in 743 games across 10 NBA seasons from 2007-17 and won an Olympic gold medal playing for Argentina in 2004, became the controlling owner of the Italian team Pallacanestro Varese earlier this year.

Juan Toscano-Anderson To Undergo MRI

December 8th, 2022 at 8:01am CST by Luke Adams

Lakers wing Juan Toscano-Anderson will also be undergoing an MRI after spraining his right ankle in the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s loss in Toronto, tweets Dave McMenamin of ESPN. Toscano-Anderson has been out of L.A.’s rotation for most of the season and played more minutes (16) on Wednesday than he had since October 23. “It sucks,” head coach Darvin Ham said of the 29-year-old getting hurt while getting a rare opportunity to play a role.