The Los Angeles Lakers offered most of their roster in one Anthony Davis trade proposal or another, and their squad looked less than enthused in a rout at the hands of the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday.
Tuesday was a day of twofold bad news for the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers started the day by making a “godfather” (those are air quotes, to be clear) offer for Anthony Davis that the New Orleans Pelicans proceeded to rebuff.
That offer reportedly consisted of literally all of the Lakers young core (Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Ivica Zubac and Josh Hart), two first round picks, and taking on Solomon Hill’s contract. The Pelicans still weren’t feeling it. With not much and/or nothing left in the clip, Los Angeles had to step back from trade talks.
Following that early L, the Lakers took on the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis and got absolutely clobbered. The Pacers won 136-94, the worst-ever loss for LeBron James in a game he’s played in. None of the young guys scored more than 12 points, with LeBron leading the way for LA with 18 points in the loss.
This would just be a hilarious night on NBA Twitter (which it very much was) if the Lakers were poised to make some sort of deal shipping off some or all of those young players who have seen their team shop them openly for about a week now. Los Angeles does not seem to have such a deal in the works right now, unless New Orleans foolishly decides to send Davis there before the deadline.
That means that, barring some other trade sending Baby Lakers elsewhere, this team is going to have to work through all of this as it fights for a playoff spot in the Western Conference. As noted in The Whiteboard on Monday, the Lakers do not have much, if any, room for error the rest of the way. The margin got smaller after this blowout. Everything is fine.
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