{"id":121460,"date":"2025-02-02T07:00:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=121460"},"modified":"2025-02-02T06:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T11:12:14","slug":"pau-gasol-lakers-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/02\/pau-gasol-lakers-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"From Pau to Luka, Lakers Making Big Deals on February 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Usually, big trades around the trade deadline happen hours (or minutes) before the deadline is reached. But the Los Angeles Lakers might love February 1 more than the other days. Seventeen years ago, they got Pau Gasol<\/a> from the Memphis Grizzlies and paired him with Kobe Bryant<\/a>. Now, on the same day on the calendar in 2025, they get Luka Doncic<\/a> to pair with LeBron James<\/a> and then lead the way after the King retires. Trades of that magnitude rarely happen for one team, let alone on the same day.<\/p>\n

From Pau to Luka, Lakers Making Big Deals February 1<\/h2>\n

Pau Gasol Lakers Trade Occurred In 2008<\/h3>\n

For people who do not remember, let\u2019s take a look at the Pau Gasol Lakers trade in 2008. They swung a franchise-altering move<\/a> with the Memphis Grizzlies for Kwame Brown<\/a>, Javaris Crittenton<\/a>, Aaron McKie<\/a>, the draft rights to Marc Gasol<\/a>, and first-round picks in 2008 and 2010. Memphis used their 2008 pick to draft Donte Greene<\/a> with the 28th pick. In the 2010 draft, the Grizzlies got the 28th pick again and drafted Greivis Vasquez<\/a>. Yes, Marc turned into a Defensive Player of the Year winner and All-Star, but Pau helped Kobe and the Lakers win back-to-back championship titles.<\/p>\n

Before Pau came to Los Angeles, the Lakers missed the playoffs in 2005 while losing in the first round in 2006 and 2007. Bryant was arguably the best player in the league, but he had little help. Gasol, alongside Lamar Odom<\/a> and Andrew Bynum<\/a> made\u00a0the Lakers a championship contender.<\/p>\n

Luka\u2019s Future With the Lakers<\/h3>\n

Even if the Lakers do not win a title with Doncic and LeBron<\/a> this season, or the next one, they have plenty of assets to rebuild the franchise for the foreseeable future. Their future before this trade looked bleak. Davis is 31 years old<\/a>. During Davis\u2019 younger years in New Orleans, he managed to lead the team only to the first round once, and to the Conference Semifinals once. Doncic, on the other hand, has taken the Mavericks to the Conference Finals two times, and the NBA Finals once.<\/p>\n

The Lakers now have a 2031 first-round pick<\/a> to offer in a future trade, plus swaps in 2026, 2028, and 2030. They managed to keep their 2024 pick, Dalton Knecht<\/a> on the roster. By the summer, Doncic can opt out of his deal, they will also have the 2032 first-round pick swap. They have plenty of assets to manage their future and build a team around Doncic once James retires. And if Doncic opts out in 2026, they can sign another player with cap room<\/a>, and then re-sign Doncic. Of course, that type of maneuvering might be challenging to pull off, but the Lakers have Doncic for a year and a half to get him on the same page.<\/p>\n

The Lakers Should Turn February 1 Into A Holiday<\/h3>\n

Whether the Lakers win a title with Doncic on their team or not, there is no denying that they struck gold with the trade. Same as the Gasol trade to the Lakers in 2008, they got an All-Star caliber player.<\/p>\n

Doncic is only 25 years old, and if they re-sign him to a longer deal in 2026, they will have a top-five player for at least five more years. If anything, February 1 should be a Lakers holiday in the future. That day has help net them two championships in the last 20 years, and maybe even more in the future.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Usually, big trades around the trade deadline happen hours (or minutes) before the deadline is reached. But the Los Angeles Lakers might love February 1 more than the other days. Seventeen years ago, they got Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies and paired him with Kobe Bryant. Now, on the same day on the calendar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5291,"featured_media":121473,"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":[1608,26,32,62,4721],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-grizzlies","category-nba","category-trade-rumors"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121460","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\/5291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121475,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121460\/revisions\/121475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}