Crucial Roster Decisions Loom Over the Lakers’ Front Office
Rob Pelinka and the Lakers front office still have roster work to do before the Lakers debut on October 21.
While we haven’t seen the Lakers’ full rotation play together, we’ve seen a mix of players and lineups get opportunities.
Five games in, we already have a sense of which players are likely to crack the rotation, as well as the roster’s strengths and weaknesses. One glaring issue throughout continues to be rebounding.
Adding context, Walker Kessler has played in only one of the four preseason games, and his absence certainly contributes to the team’s rebounding struggles.
The Need for a Backup Center
But even with Kessler out, the Lakers still need a backup center who can rebound and protect the rim while Kessler rests. Backup centers, and centers in general, are hard to find on the player market, but not impossible.
The Lakers could find a backup-center solution through a trade, specifically a 2-for-1 deal that would also get them to 15 roster spots. Jake Fischer reported on TheSteinLine Substack that the Lakers and Bucks have held “exploratory” talks to send Dalton Knecht and 2nd-round draft capital to Milwaukee for Jericho Sims. Fischer adds that the league is pessimistic that a trade will actually get done.
Knecht and Hardy’s Future With the Team
The alternative would be to waive Knecht, leaving “dead money” on the Lakers’ salary cap sheet for the rest of the season. Knecht’s confidence has very clearly taken a hit over the last several seasons, ever since the botched Mark Williams trade. He was never the same player afterward, and it’s been clear for quite some time that new scenery for him would benefit him greatly.
Jaden Hardy is another likely candidate to be waived or included in a potential deal, based purely on his standing in the rotation and the guys ahead of him.
Dan Woike of The Athletic spoke on Zach Lowe’s show recently and discussed where the Lakers are at in their search for a backup big man:
“I mean, they’re looking. They’re looking. But a lot of teams are looking at backup bigs, you know. It’s not a super robust market. A situation I would say that I’m monitoring is like what’s going on with the back of Dallas’ bench, like, are they going to carry four centers?”
The Lakers have until October 19th to cut their roster from 16 players to 15 to meet the league’s requirements.
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Categorized:Lakers