Lakers Almost Traded for Knicks Center

The New York Knicks were far from the busiest team at this year's hectic trade deadline, but they still made one move around the edges before Thursday's buzzer sounded.

As a part of the Milwaukee Bucks and Washington Wizards' deal to swap Khris Middleton and Kyle Kuzma, the Knicks came in as a third team to facilitate the move, shipping center Jericho Sims to Milwaukee in exchange for Delon Wright.

Sims, the 26-year-old big who spent the first four years of his NBA career with the Knicks, isn't quite a household name. Yet, the big man still received some notable interest from teams around the league before getting shipped to the Bucks –– one of those being the Los Angeles Lakers.

According to ESPN insider Tim McMenamin, the Lakers considered adding Sims to help fill out their frontcourt depth after their Luka Doncic blockbuster before the Knicks ultimately shipped him to the Bucks.

"The Lakers considered adding bruising 6-10 center Jericho Sims, sources said, before he was moved from New York to Milwaukee on Wednesday for Delon Wright as an addition to the Kyle Kuzma-for-Khris Middleton deal," McMenamin said. "Sims would have fit the "stuff around the margins" category that Pelinka vowed the team would explore during Doncic's introductory news conference Tuesday because, the GM said, 'the market for bigs right now ... is very dry. There's just not a lot available."

Sims had played 39 games for the Knicks in the 2024-25 campaign averaging 1.6 points and 3.3 rebounds in just over 10 minutes a night.

Instead of making the minor move with New York, the Lakers had sights set on a bigger trade with the Charlotte Hornets for center Mark Williams in hopes of addressing their frontcourt needs. In the end, that deal was nixed due to a failed physical and the move being rescinded from Los Angeles.

With hindsight 20/20, maybe the Lakers would reconsider their move for Sims to add some depth to their now questionable big-man rotation. But now, the former Knicks center resides in Milwaukee while Los Angeles will need to get creative in their hopes of creating a formidable frontcourt for the remainder of the 2024-25 season.

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