{"id":119222,"date":"2025-01-20T19:40:02","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T00:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=119222"},"modified":"2025-01-20T19:44:34","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T00:44:34","slug":"lebron-james-lakers-trade-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/20\/lebron-james-lakers-trade-moves\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James Knows Lakers Need Another Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

JJ Redick<\/span><\/a>\u00a0appealed to the growth process following his team’s latest loss to their city rivals, the\u00a0<\/span>Los Angeles Clippers<\/span><\/a>. The purple and gold didn’t have it against the Clips, and Lakers superstar\u00a0<\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is actively aware another trade has to come. To his credit, GM Rob Pelinka has made a trade already, but given LeBron’s recent comments, Pelinka needs to make a second.<\/span><\/p>\n

LeBron James Knows Lakers Need Another Trade<\/h2>\n

Lakers Must Upgrade Further Via Trade, Hints Made by LeBron James<\/h3>\n

It was another poor, defenseless effort in their first visit to the Intuit Dome, as the Lakers fell 116-102. They were outplayed on the defensive end, and it didn’t help that\u00a0<\/span>Ivica Zubac<\/span><\/a>\u00a0cleaned the rim to the tune of 19 rebounds in total. While Redick’s implementation of two bigs at a time\u2014<\/span>Anthony Davis<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Jaxson Hayes<\/span><\/a>\u2014did show signs of a strength Redick will likely go to again, it wasn’t enough to stop the Clippers from coming out on top.\u00a0Following the game,\u00a0<\/span>LeBron spoke to their in-game shortcomings<\/span><\/a> and, by name,\u00a0<\/span>shouted out the Clips<\/span><\/a>\u00a0who ruined their evening.<\/span><\/p>\n

“They capitalized off our turnovers and mistakes defensively. It’s a great team. Very well coached, Hall of Famers, great complimentary players. Norm [Norman Powell] having a great season, Big Zu [Ivica Zubac] big time. So, when you’re playing against a great team, you got to limit your mistakes, offensively and defensively, ’cause they make you pay and I think they did that tonight.”<\/em><\/p>\n

LeBron further discussed the Lakers’ margin of error and hinted that their roster needed more upgrades.<\/p>\n

“No, that’s not how our team is constructed. We don’t have room for error \u2014 for much error. We don’t have room for error \u2014 for much error…We don’t have a choice. I mean that’s the way our team is constructed. We have to play close to perfect basketball. We know the game is never perfect, it’s never going to be a 48-minute perfect basketball game. But we can’t combat it on multiple possessions in a row or if we’re turning the ball over, we have to do a better job with that.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Rob Pelinka’s Early Deal Foreshadows A Deadline Deal<\/h3>\n

The Lakers will likely<\/span> make another move<\/span><\/a>\u2014it’s almost inevitable, right? Pelinka wouldn’t stop at\u00a0<\/span>Dorian Finney-Smith<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Shake Milton<\/span><\/a>\u00a0when center depth is the deeper issue in their roster. The addition of Trey Jemison III isn’t going to cut it. Considering Pelinka has already made a move, and an early one at that, it shows signs that he isn’t done. LeBron will likely get his way in the form of another trade by February 6th.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lakers have options with big men still out there like\u00a0<\/span>Robert Williams<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Jonas Valan\u010di\u016bnas<\/span><\/a>, and, more recently,\u00a0<\/span>Kelly Olynyk<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Daniel Gafford<\/span><\/a>. The question is, what will any of these options cost? And how many more draft picks\u2014first or second\u2014will Pelinka let go of? The trade deadline is looming, and the Lakers struggle to play consistent defense night-to-night. If LeBron knows his team’s margin for error is zero, and Redick also knows it, then Pelinka must see it, too.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JJ Redick\u00a0appealed to the growth process following his team’s latest loss to their city rivals, the\u00a0Los Angeles Clippers. The purple and gold didn’t have it against the Clips, and Lakers superstar\u00a0LeBron James\u00a0is actively aware another trade has to come. To his credit, GM Rob Pelinka has made a trade already, but given LeBron’s recent comments, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":119224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4721,1608,26,62],"tags":[240,1453,2272,652,1962,2279,167,517,38,1588,3811],"class_list":["post-119222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trade-rumors","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","tag-anthony-davis","tag-daniel-gafford","tag-dorian-finney-smith","tag-ivica-zubac","tag-jaxson-hayes","tag-jj-redick","tag-jonas-valanciunas","tag-kelly-olynyk","tag-lebron-james","tag-robert-williams","tag-shake-milton"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119227,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119222\/revisions\/119227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}