Lakers News: Expert Predicts LA Trades for Longtime Target, Finally Locks Up Shooting
After a season that ended with a sweep at the hands of the Denver Nuggets, another offseason of speculation is on the horizon for the Los Angeles Lakers.
With multiple impending free agents set to hit the market this summer, the Los Angeles will have some important decisions to ponder.
Will they bring back Austin Reaves? Will they let D'Angelo Russell walk after a disappointing playoffs?
Those are just two of the questions that the franchise will have to figure out the answer to, and one of them is an all too familiar refrain.
Will the team look to upgrade their perimeter shooting over these next few months?
Bleacher Report's Zach Buckley predicts that the team will finally solve that problem -- and do it by acquiring a longtime Laker target.
"Part of the problem is that Malik Beasley, the best on-paper shooter whom they added, never lived up to the billing. That's why it would make sense to swap him and a future first-round pick for former Lakers trade target Buddy Hield, who is one of the NBA's premier perimeter shooters," Buckley writes.
"Hield, who might be too old for the rebuilding Pacers to keep, just had an absurd shooting season, netting a career-high 288 triples at a 42.5 percent clip. He'd have cheat-code potential playing alongside James and Davis, who could both feed him for spot-up shots and thrive in the open areas that his shooting would create."
Hield's name has been floating around Lakers circles since even before he reached the NBA, as he was a potential target for the team leading up to the 2016 NBA draft, where he was ultimately taken at No. 8 overall by the Sacramento Kings.
Hield would certainly solve a glaring hole in the Lakers roster, and the $18.5 million he's due to make next season in the final year of his contract would be affordable for the Lakers, even with the impending roster crunch that this offseason will bring.
Getting a future first round pick and the 26-year-old Beasley seems like it'd be an attractive haul for the rebuilding Pacers, and the Lakers would get a sharpshooter that they've desperately needed while getting value out of Beasley, who's waiting to see whether Los Angeles will exercise his $16.5 million team option for next season.
Time will tell whether this trade happens -- the deadline for the Lakers to exercise Beasley's option is June 29, per Spotrac -- but its certainly something to keep an eye out for.
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