Lakers: Should L.A. Make Deals To Help Team Win Now?

And can they?

Your Los Angeles Lakers are currently in something of a strange situation.

The club is currently ranked 12th in the West at 11-16, but zooming out has gone 9-6 after a rocky 2-10 start. The strong play of Anthony Davis and LeBron James, two absolutely win-now veterans, has been somewhat stymied by the team's limited role players.

Bill Plaschke of The Los Angeles Times and Mirjam Swanson of The Orange County Register both contend in separate pieces that Davis and James deserve better teammates than what they have now. Even at age 37 and in year 20, James remains one of the league's best 25 or so players. Davis has taken a leap this season, and looking like an All-NBA Second Team talent.

The most glaring issues for the club appears to be its lack of shooting depth around the wing and defensive help at the forward position. The team could start to address that by offloading the expiring $13 million contract of current (and confounding) L.A. starting point guard Patrick Beverley, possibly along with the expiring $5.3 million deal of reserve point guard Kendrick Nunn.

Both players are fairly redundant on a roster with three better players who can convincingly run the point, in reserve point guard Russell Westbrook (overpaid at $47.1 million this season but still a solid contributor and the team's third-best player), starter Dennis Schröder and reserve guard Austin Reaves, who at 6'5" generally plays more on the wing but is a good enough passer to also hypothetically be the team's starting lead guard. LeBron James also of course frequently brings the ball up and functions as the Lakers' primary playmaker.

Beverley and Nunn haven't been able to hit the broad side of a barn when it comes to their jump shooting. Beverley remains a solid defender and energy player in limited run, while Nunn (who is on the outskirts of Darvin Ham's rotations) has become pretty much useless since returning from a knee injury that kept him sidelined for all of the 2021-22 NBA season.

The team apparently is reticent to move on from Westbrook's contract this season, in part because it also doesn't want to have to attach two first-round draft picks to convince trade partners to take on his contract, and in part because he has emerged as a useful player and something of a fan favorite. But even if it moved Beverley and Nunn and just one first-round pick, in 2027 or 2029, that could be enough to at least return one solid player (Pacers big man Myles Turner is making $17.5 million this season, for instance).