The Los Angles Lakers have had an interesting year, to say the least. Since they added LeBron James in free agency last year, nothing has seemed to go right. For the first time in his career, he suffered a significant injury that caused him to miss games. They couldn’t pull off a trade for Anthony Davis. Then, Hall of Famer Magic Johnson left the organization citing being backstabbed by Rob Pelinka. But all that is over now as The Lakers are now in a great position to land another max free agent to join LeBron and A.D.
On Thursday Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka made some major moves by trading Mo Wagner, a former first rounder, former second-round pick Isaac Bonga, and developmental-league warm body Jemerrio Jones to the Washington Wizards, along with a future second-round pick, in exchange for cash. These three happened to be the last three players left on the Lakers roster other than LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Kyle Kuzma. and they were traded away in order to get the Lakers enough salary cap space to recruit Kawhi Leonard (clearing the space also required that Davis waive a $4.1 million trade kicker, which he reportedly did) or Kyrie Irving Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reported Thursday that the Lakers are one of the few teams who will have a meeting with Kawhi this summer.
Marc Stein of the New York Times reports the Lakers plan to go after Kawhi Leonard and Kyrie Irving in equal measure, despite rumors that Irving has his mind set on the Brooklyn Nets.
Other basketball experts believe that Kawhi Leonard’s decision will either be the Toronto Raptors or the Los Angeles Clippers.
Either way, the Los Angeles Lakers are in a position to land another big name star to add pieces around LeBron and A.D.
