Lakers: Insider Believes Talen Horton-Tucker and Kendrick Nunn On Trading Block
Most of the Lakers trade chatter in the ever expansive NBA universe has been centered around Russell Westbrook. Whether or not the Lakers decide to ship Westbrook out of LA will have a massive impact on what the 2022-2023 roster looks like. But a pair of NBA experts believe that's not the only trade general manager Rob Pelinka and senior basketball adviser Kurt Rambis will explore this offseason.
In a recent episode of the HoopsHype podcast, Michael Scotto said he would be pretty surprised if the Lakers don't actively shop Talen Horton-Tucker and Kendrick Nunn.
"I’d be shocked if Talen Horton-Tucker, Kendrick Nunn and multiple first-round picks aren’t dangled on the trade market this summer for the Lakers. When you look at their roster outside of LeBron and Davis, that’s the only way for them to try to improve the team. I don’t think it’ll get the team anything back of consequence. They tried to dangle that before the trade deadline."
As Scotto mentions, the Lakers peddled Horton-Tucker and Nunn before this year's deadline to no avail.
Yossi Gozlan, a salary cap expert, thinks the Lakers might want to jettison Westbrook first, and then pursue trade options for for Horton-Tucker and Nunn.
"I think the Lakers ideally want to try to trade Westbrook without attaching a pick and get several role players to fill out the roster. Then, try to package Horton-Tucker and Nunn for something else. Both players can bring back around $20 million. Maybe they attach a pick there and see what they can get."
Horton-Tucker is set to earn $10.3M next season. Assuming Kendrick Nunn opts into the second year of his contract, he's due to make $5.25M.
To Gozlan's point, the pair of guards combined salary could be enough for LA to land a solid rotation player in a potential trade. That's probably contingent upon the Lakers including either their 2027 or 2029 first-round pick since Horton-Tucker and Nunn aren't exactly highly valued at the moment.
In 60 games this season, Horton-Tucker shot just 41.6% from the field and only 26.9% from three in 25.2 minutes per game. Nunn missed the entire season due to knee injury.
