Can the Lakers Trade for Giannis? A Picks-First Pitch to Milwaukee

Could the Lakers actually get into the mix for Giannis himself?

I know we hear a lot of Milwaukee, Boston, Giannis trade, Milwaukee, Miami, maybe a

third team getting in.

Can the Lakers beat the package that we're hearing from Boston, which would involve Jalen

Brown or a package from Miami, which would involve Tyler Hero, Jaime Hawkins, Kello Ware

have to be another salary in there.

Maybe it's like a Nikola Jovich or someone like that.

Plus draft capital, Yovan is there, is there a world where the Lakers can find some way

to compete with those kinds of offers?

I would say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and here value is in the eye of the beholder.

So you could go the Lakers path, which the Lakers are maybe the only team that could

offer this other than Chicago or Brooklyn, which is just dump the honest contract on

the Lakers and not take back anything if they so choose.

There's also a version where you could do a sign in trade with Austin Reeves, but if

they don't want to take on Jalen Brown and they don't love some of the offers for him

in like a three team deal or they don't love the Tyler Hero contract and they don't think

that's quite enough of a return from a player perspective and they're just like, these

guys aren't really moving the needle for us.

There is a way that if they just want to dump Giannis's contract and get the picks back

from the Lakers, they can do that.

And so you rarely have a situation where you can just dump a player entirely without attaching

an asset or without taking something back and also be getting assets back for that.

So the Lakers pitch would be get off the honest contract, get out of the cap hell that you're

partly in because of the Dame stretch, because of Miles Turner's contract and some of the

decisions you've made over the last few years.

And here are three picks.

We'll draft the number 20, 25 pick on your behalf.

We'll send you to unprotected future first 20, 31, 20, 32, I mean, 20, 33, we could throw

in up to, I believe, three pick swaps at that point if they're trading, because they have

up to five pick swaps.

So if they're doing two first, they could do three pick swaps in a second.

Like you throw all of L.A.'s draft assets at Giannis and that that's the offer.

And then you can still keep Austin.

You can still technically keep LeBron depending on where his salary is out at that point.

And that is L.A.'s pitch to Milwaukee to get Giannis.