While NBA trade deadline day promises to have a plethora of franchise altering moves, the Lakers got in on the action late Wednesday evening after missing out on trading for disgruntled guard Kyrie Irving earlier in the week. They finalized a 3 team deal involving the Utah Jazz and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The deal itself:
Lakers Receive: D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt
Jazz Receive: Russel Westbrook, Juan Toscano-Anderson, Damian Jones and a top 4 protected 2027 1st round Lakers pick
Timberwolves Receive: Mike Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and 3 2nd round picks
While trades always have long term implications and can’t be judged until all the pieces fall into place, we can certainly evaluate what the moves made mean for the teams in the immediate future.
ESPN Sources: The Lakers are finalizing deal to land Minnesota’s D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt in trade including Mike Conley and picks to Timberwolves and Russell Westbrook and a lightly protected 2027 LA first-round pick to Jazz.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 9, 2023
The Lakers have to walk away from this deal feeling like winners given their lack of assets available ahead of the deadline. They acquired arguably the best player in the trade in D’Angelo Russell and immediately improved their depth and bench scoring.
They’re clearly in a win now mentality with LeBron James in his late 30’s and no guarantee on how long Anthony Davis will last healthwise. While Russell Westbook deserves credit for accepting his role as the 6th man for the Lakers, his fit with James and Davis was tenuous as best, so moving on from him is realistically no big loss for the lakers.
D-Lo isn’t the lights out shooter that the Lakers probably need, but his 3-point average over the past 3 seasons would be a career high for Russel Westbrook. The Lakers needed a point guard who could give defenders pause at the three point line and D’Angelo Russell will give them that. With the amount of attention Davis and James draw, it wouldn’t be surprising to see D-Lo’s 3 point number flourish.
Adding in Malik Beasley, who’s averaged 14.1 points, 3.1 threes and 37.6 three point percentage over the past three seasons, is just icing on the cake for a team that has notoriously struggled with spacing due to the lack of outside shooting.
The addition of Vanderbilt gives them a hard nosed defender who can cover multiple positions and always rebounds with intensity. The Lakers essentially switched out one ill fitting 6th man for 3 key rotational pieces and it only cost them 1 of their 2 first round picks. With the Lakers tied to literally any player that becomes available, there are obviously better fits than what they wound up with, and it’s possible that Russell will get exposed in the playoffs with his defensive deficiencies, but this move makes the Lakers better on paper.
The Jazz are likely to just buy out Westbrook, which officially makes the once heralded scorer into a full blown journeyman as he will look for his 5th team in the past 6 seasons. Following the Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell deals, the Jazz are clearly looking to shed salary, acquire draft picks and hope the lottery balls fall their way as they enter a full scale rebuild.
You could argue that the Jazz should have held onto their assets and dealt them in separate trades to maximize their value, but the 2027 first round pick has huge potential and it’s unlikely they would be collecting 1st rounders for the players they moved out. Even by buying out Westbrook they are saving money in the long run by shedding themselves of Conley’s $14 million guaranteed for next season.
The Timberwolves have had a disappointing season after trading the farm to acquire Rudy Gobert this past offseason. This trade doubles down on that deal, moving on from a 26 year old point guard to get a 35 year old Conley, who Gobert is familiar with.
There’s an existing chemistry between the two, and Conley has proven he can play off the ball as well which bodes well for his partnership with budding star Anthony Edwards. The Wolves are already paying Gobert and Karl Anthony Towns max money, and will soon be doing the same for Edwards. It makes sense for the Wolves to move on from Russell as he’ll be a free agent this offseason, and they should be looking at making Edwards their primary ball handler going forward.
The 2nd round picks won’t amount to much, realistically, so the Wolves traded their younger scoring guard for an older playmaking point guard, but they at least have contract control for another year. The trade works for the Wolves as they were looking at the possibility of losing Russell for nothing, so taking a flier on Conley reinvigorating Gobert and making the offense a more cohesive unit is worth what they gave up
-Devon Gallant
Twitter: @DevGallant
Photo: Erik Drost. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.