The Lakers Need to Make a Trade (or Two)

The Lakers are not living up to the hype this season. But what can they do?

L.A’s finest, Magic Johnson, had some things to say about the Lakers' performance against the Denver Nuggets on Saturday, Jan. 15.

After the horrible loss, he said that the fans deserved better in terms of the team’s effort in that game.

Earvin Magic Johnson @MagicJohnson

After being blown out by the Nuggets 133-96, we as @Lakers fans can accept being outplayed but we deserve more than a lack of effort and no sense of urgency. Owner @JeanieBuss, you deserve better.

After hearing the criticism, LeBron James headed over to Twitter to apologize on behalf of the team.

LeBron James @KingJames

#LakerNation I apologize and I promise we’ll be better! 👑💜💛

The Lakers are currently on a 3-game losing slide and it’s pretty bad. But what makes matters worse is that they’ve just been disappointing this season.

During the off-season, they brought in some big names and the NBA world was excited to see what they could achieve.

Fans expected them to bring their collective A-Game and be the top dog in the Western Conference.

They expected the Lakers to be dominant. But the Lakers are doing the opposite of that.

They’ve played poorly, they’ve lost to teams that have half the talent, and they’ve gotten blown out by teams that they should be competitive against.

So, what’s their deal?

I think it has to do with the team’s poor chemistry and lack of depth.

First, their star players don’t seem to gel well together skills-wise.

They seem to all need the ball in their hands to produce. But some of the stars make bad decisions when they do possess the ball.

Second, the Lakers need better role players.

When the stars aren’t on the floor, the Lakers don’t have good enough players who can keep the opponents at bay.

This causes them to either lose leads or increase deficits.

So, what can they do?

I personally think they need to trade away one of their stars for more talented young players and draft picks.

The reason why is because they need better support players and more youth. They need a better variety of talented players to help support the stars and they need more talent for the future.

“But who should be traded?” you may be thinking.

Well, there’s Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, and LeBron James. But it’s very unlikely that LeBron will be traded.

So, that leaves us with the other two players.

If I were their GM -and this was 2K- I would probably trade both of them for younger players and draft picks. I would try to get players like John Collins, Jaylen Brown, De’Aaron Fox, or guys around that age.

The reason why I would do this is that it doesn’t seem like the team is going to win it all this season and the youth will be good for their future.

So, I would just start fresh.

I would let LeBron get acquainted with and mentor the young guys this season and then try for the Larry O’Brien Trophy next year.

But these are just my ridiculous thoughts on how the Lakers can improve.

What are your ridiculous suggestions?