Lakers: Jalen Rose Compares LA Trading LeBron James to Trading Kobe Bryant
Earlier this week, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith strong suggested that the Lakers should think about trading LeBron James. It's not the first time the idea has been floated, but since it was Stephen A, NBA fans took notice.
One of his co-workers at the worldwide leader in sports, Jalen Rose, emphatically pushed back on the idea on an appearance on Get Up. He even went as far as to say that it was somewhat similar to the Lakers trading Kobe in the post-Shaq era.
"You can't do that if you're the Lakers. Even though the Lakers aren't championship contention worthy, you're still a box office face of the franchise player in LA. You can't be trading LeBron James. That's almost like trading Kobe Bryant in the years that they didn't make the playoffs."
Mike Greenberg mentioned that unlike Kobe, Lebron is a "hired gun" for the Lakers.
Rose used the comment as a springboard to his next point.
"So you're highlighting the second thing I want to say. If that's the case, so is Anthony Davis and that's the guy you actually need to be trying to trade, not LeBron James. He needs a secondary best player that going to supplement the times that he's going to miss games. At this point in his career, hopefully he [James] plays 60, 65 games."
In addition to disagreeing with trading away a marquee player like LeBron, Rose also highlighted, what in his opinion, is an undesirable after effect of making such a move.
"If you're trading LeBron, that means you're building around Anthony Davis now."
Rose didn't question Davis' talents, but rather, his inability to to stay healthy.
This should be a transformative offseason for the Lakers, but trading LeBron James definitely shouldn't be on the menu. He might not be in his prime anymore, but chances are, the Lakers are going to need LeBron if they want to compete for a championship next season.
