{"id":83782,"date":"2024-06-30T15:33:38","date_gmt":"2024-06-30T19:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=83782"},"modified":"2024-06-30T15:33:38","modified_gmt":"2024-06-30T19:33:38","slug":"lakers-trade-rumors-team-could-split-up-starting-backcourt-dangelo-russell-austin-reaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/30\/lakers-trade-rumors-team-could-split-up-starting-backcourt-dangelo-russell-austin-reaves\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers Trade Rumors: Team Could Split Up Starting Backcourt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hours after <\/span>D\u2019Angelo Russell<\/span><\/a> exercised his player option<\/span><\/a> to return to the Lakers, reports have emerged that the team is looking towards an opt-in and trade scenario\u2014a far cry from Russell\u2019s priority to win a championship in LA<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to <\/span>The Athletic\u2019s Jovan Buha<\/span><\/a>, the Lakers are now aggressively pursuing \u201cRussell-centric trades,\u201d adding:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Internally within the Lakers, there is a sense that there is a clear ceiling to an Austin Reaves-D\u2019Angelo Russell backcourt pairing. Reaves is younger, better defensively, a superior playoff performer and is on a team-friendly multi-year contract.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lakers Trade Rumors: Team Could Split Up Starting Backcourt<\/b><\/h2>\n

Russell-Reaves Backcourt History<\/b><\/h3>\n

At times, pairing Russell with budding star <\/span>Austin Reaves<\/span><\/a> made perfect sense. Both players could score and facilitate well, complement LeBron James and Anthony Davis to a tee, and often executed when it mattered the most.<\/span><\/p>\n

This season, the team\u2019s most commonly used lineup featured LA\u2019s two stars, Russell, Reaves and <\/span>Rui Hachimura<\/span><\/a>\u2014a combination that took former head coach Darvin Ham until January to figure out. In 389 total minutes and across 25 games (24 as starters), the group logged an offensive rating of 116 and a defensive rating of 110.5 for a net rating of 5.5. As starters, they finished the regular season with a 18-6 record. Aside from James and Davis, Russell and Reaves were integral contributors to that particular lineup\u2019s success.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a duo, the two guards finished the regular season with a net rating of -0.4 (115.7 offensive, 116 defensive). In the playoffs, those numbers were surprisingly better\u2014a 118 offensive rating and a 109.9 defensive rating for a net rating of 8.0. However, it\u2019s worth noting that Reaves was the more efficient scorer of the two, racking up 16.8 points per game to Russell\u2019s 14.2 and on higher field goal percentage (47.6% to D\u2019Lo\u2019s 38.4%).<\/span><\/p>\n

Lakers Moving Russell: Potential Targets<\/b><\/h3>\n

Between the two, it\u2019s understandable why LA would rather keep Reaves over Russell. They’ve maintained their stance from the trade deadline, when they engaged in trade talks around Russell while refusing to give up Reaves. Heading into free agency\u2014and armed with demands from their two stars to improve\u2014moving on from D\u2019Lo may be their best case scenario. The question\u2014especially after <\/span>Dejounte Murray<\/span><\/a> was dealt to the Pelicans<\/span><\/a>\u2014becomes who they would move him for.<\/span><\/p>\n

Per Buha, Russell\u2019s expiring $18.7 million salary is now \u201c<\/span>one of Los Angeles\u2019 more valuable trade assets, particularly for salary-matching purposes.<\/span>\u201d He also detailed the types of players the Lakers could target in their pursuit of Russell-centered trades:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Wings such as Portland\u2019s <\/span>Jerami Grant<\/span><\/a>, former Lakers player <\/span>Kyle Kuzma<\/span><\/a> and the Nets\u2019 duo of <\/span>Dorian Finney-Smith<\/span><\/a> and Cam Johnson are expected to be available on the trade market, according to league sources. They aren\u2019t the biggest needle-movers, but any of those four players would enhance the Lakers\u2019 perimeter defense, frontcourt size and\/or floor spacing.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The <\/span>Nets<\/span><\/a>, who are officially in rebuild mode, are arguably the most intriguing trade partner for the Lakers. LA has been eyeing <\/span>Dorian Finney-Smith<\/span><\/a> for a while, and <\/span>Cam Johnson<\/span><\/a> is the prototypical 3-and-D wing that would suit the Lakers\u2019 needs. A reunion with Kyle Kuzma<\/a> could also be ideal. <\/span>Jerami Grant<\/span><\/a>, another longtime LA target, may also be feasible if it weren\u2019t for the behemoth of a five-year contract he inked last summer. The Lakers\u2019 <\/span>recent link<\/span><\/a> to <\/span>Collin Sexton<\/span><\/a> could make things even more interesting. In 78 games (51 starts), the 6\u20191\u201d guard averaged 18.7 points, 4.9 assists and 2.6 rebounds on .487\/.394\/.859 splits.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/b><\/h3>\n

All in all, if Russell opting in wasn\u2019t a key step towards improvement, the Lakers trading him could very well be. The team already has limited cap space\u2014even if LeBron takes a pay cut. Thus, LA must trade for high-caliber players if they want to begin the JJ Redick<\/a> era on a high note.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hours after D\u2019Angelo Russell exercised his player option to return to the Lakers, reports have emerged that the team is looking towards an opt-in and trade scenario\u2014a far cry from Russell\u2019s priority to win a championship in LA. According to The Athletic\u2019s Jovan Buha, the Lakers are now aggressively pursuing \u201cRussell-centric trades,\u201d adding: \u201cInternally within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4265,"featured_media":83786,"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":[1608,26,62],"tags":[240,4556,1781,1594,307,2272,1628,2279,1128,38,4774],"class_list":["post-83782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","tag-anthony-davis","tag-austin-reaves","tag-cam-johnson","tag-collin-sexton","tag-dangelo-russell","tag-dorian-finney-smith","tag-jerami-grant","tag-jj-redick","tag-kyle-kuzma","tag-lebron-james","tag-rumors"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83782","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\/4265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}