With less than a month to go until NBA training camps open, and with the reported belief that the Utah Jazz want to trade Donovan Mitchell before then, Substack’s Marc Stein reported Sunday that “there’s a decent chance that the Lakers will be involved in the deal .”
Stein reported that this could be the case whether or not the New York Knicks end up being the team that acquires Mitchell.
“The two future first-round picks that the Lakers possess in 2027 and 2029 are the kind of top-shelf draft picks that Jazz CEO Danny Ainge is believed to covet,” Stein wrote. “Russell Westbrook’s $47 million expiring contract and those picks could be the Lakers’ entree to a potential three-team swap … depending on the players that would land in Los Angeles.”
Stein continued that “The Lakers, I’m told, continue to hold firm on their position that they will agree to surrender both of their future firsts in the same deal only if the trade makes them a certified contender,” and then he rhetorically asked if Utah forward Bojan Bogdanovic and New York wing Evan Fournier would make Los Angeles a contender.
Stein also had a note about a trade between the Jazz and Lakers that has already occurred, the deal last week that sent Patrick Beverley from Utah to Los Angeles for Talen Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson.
“League sources say that the Lakers were clearly resistant to the idea of swapping Talen Horton-Tucker for Beverley when the teams began discussing a potential swap in July, owing to the Lakers’ desire to be younger, faster and more athletic this season,” Stein wrote.
He wrote that things changed when Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving was no longer available and when LeBron James signed a contract extension, keeping Los Angeles in win-now mode.
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