{"id":121829,"date":"2025-02-03T20:12:31","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T01:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=121829"},"modified":"2025-02-03T20:12:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T01:12:31","slug":"lakers-austin-reaves-kessler-walker-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/03\/lakers-austin-reaves-kessler-walker-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Kendrick Perkins Calls For Second Big Lakers Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The speculation grows around the chances of another trade in Los Angeles<\/a>\u00a0following GM Rob Pelinka’s decision to ship out\u00a0<\/span>Anthony Davis<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0<\/span>Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/span><\/a>. If it wasn’t evident before, it surely is now that the\u00a0<\/span>Lakers need a center<\/span><\/a>. Giving up AD almost demands that Pelinka trades for someone to take Davis’s place. Could that trade involve the Utah Jazz? Could the Lakers trade\u00a0<\/span>Austin Reaves<\/span><\/a>? The more important question is whether the Lakers even want to give up Reaves, who is having a career year.\u00a0<\/span>Kendrick Perkins<\/span><\/a>\u00a0believes this exact trade should happen now that Davis is gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kendrick Perkins Calls For Second Big Lakers Trade<\/h2>\n

Lakers Trade Austin Reaves for Walker Kessler? ‘Package up Austin’, says Big Perk<\/h3>\n

The Lakers aren’t done\u2014that is clearer now than when the\u00a0<\/span>D’Angelo Russell<\/span><\/a>–<\/span>Dorian Finney-Smith<\/span><\/a>\u00a0trade went down in early January. The Lakers now house a massive hole in their roster that\u00a0<\/span>Jaxson Hayes<\/span><\/a>\u00a0can’t begin to fill. If Pelinka doesn’t move on this urgent matter, the Lakers will need to score 130 points a night from here on out to win games. While the focus now shifts to replacing AD, the favored candidates remain available:\u00a0<\/span>Jonas Valan\u010di\u016bnas<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Nikola Vu\u010devi\u0107<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Myles Turner<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Nic Claxton<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Walker Kessler<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Utah. Perkins believes the Lakers should move on a trade involving Kessler and Reaves and\u00a0<\/span>spoke about it on the\u00a0<\/span><\/a>Road Trippin’ Podcast<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>[37:00 mark]<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith this roster, if the Lakers don\u2019t make a move and keep this roster, their ceiling is a second-round exit. Now, if the Lakers go out and get the young fella from Utah, Walker Kessler, OK now they\u2019re moving the needle. It may happen now. Two weeks ago Austin Reaves was untouchable. I guarantee, now you could put your hands on him [Kessler] right now, package up Austin.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Kessler has been the subject of trade rumors involving the Lakers since the offseason, as has Valan\u010di\u016bnas. It was reported in December that the Lakers could have moved on the Washington Wizards big man in November, but nothing materialized. Kessler has overtaken Valan\u010di\u016bnas as the\u00a0<\/span>Lakers top center target<\/span><\/a> since. However, Utah’s asking price is steep and likely would have to include Reaves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No Longer Untouchable?<\/h3>\n

It’s hard to imagine a team not asking for Reaves in return for a top or second-tier center. If not Kessler, a trade for Turner or Vu\u010devi\u0107 carries the risk of having to give up Reaves. He, <\/span>Rui Hachimura<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Dalton Knecht<\/span><\/a> were always believed to be untouchable. That said, Hachimura’s name has popped up recently as trade bait, but that doesn’t mean the Lakers stance on him has changed. Reaves now, especially with AD gone, is the Lakers most valuable trade asset. Are the Lakers willing to let him go in exchange for a greater need in the overall roster?<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless, watch out for another move, whether Perkins is on the right track with his Reaves-Kessler take or something else develops. It’s hard to imagine the Lakers will take a back seat now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The speculation grows around the chances of another trade in Los Angeles\u00a0following GM Rob Pelinka’s decision to ship out\u00a0Anthony Davis\u00a0for\u00a0Luka Don\u010di\u0107. If it wasn’t evident before, it surely is now that the\u00a0Lakers need a center. Giving up AD almost demands that Pelinka trades for someone to take Davis’s place. Could that trade involve the Utah […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":121833,"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":[4721,1608,26,62,24],"tags":[240,4556,307,49212,2272,1962,167,3215,1133,637,4581,474,1749,4513],"class_list":["post-121829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trade-rumors","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","category-jazz","tag-anthony-davis","tag-austin-reaves","tag-dangelo-russell","tag-dalton-knecht","tag-dorian-finney-smith","tag-jaxson-hayes","tag-jonas-valanciunas","tag-kendrick-perkins","tag-luka-doncic","tag-myles-turner","tag-nic-claxton","tag-nikola-vucevic","tag-rui-hachimura","tag-walker-kessler"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121829","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=121829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121836,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121829\/revisions\/121836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}