After a devastating and embarrassing franchise-worst loss, the LA Lakers suddenly return to the NBA trade rumor mill.
At the start of the season, the Lakers seemed to have signed out of any trade conversations because of their surprise start, but they seemed to have fallen to earth the past month--until they reached an abyss.
The Lakers lost to the Dallas Mavericks, a team that was behind them in the standings, by a whopping 49 points-right on the anniversary of Kobe Bryant's historic 81 points game. Bryant actually outscored his successors, 81-73 as pointed out in this ESPN feature.
Despite an injury to starting point guard D'Angelo Russell, there is simply no excuse for this. Along with their current slump, it validated the question that haunts Lakers fans-is their team tanking?
Their draft situation remains the same as last year's: win a top 3 pick or lose it to the Philadelphia 76ers. With a promising start under new coach Luke Walton, the idea was forgotten but after the loss, your guess is as good as mine.
The idea of trading for the future was also brought up and a daring proposal to trade Jordan Clarkson was tossed around. This may sound outlandish, but there are solid reasons to consider this.
1) Clarkson is probably the most consistent of the Lakers young core but he has the least upside. D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and most especially Brandon Ingram still have much room to improve, but Clarkson is likely the player that he is now.
2) Trading off Clarkson will help their tanking effort, as pointed out by Lake Show Life. The Fansided team blog named Clarkson as one of the players that "could be traded." It's not a recommendation but if the Lakers would want to tank, Clarkson can get them assets and also increase their chances to keep their pick. That sets up the next reason.
3) The top picks are both guards. The only way to keep their pick is if it lands on the top three, where the choices are two combo guards as described in this report. That's the same position as Clarkson and would create a similar logjam at the guard spot.
There are other players that should probably be traded before even touching Clarkson. Lou Williams is at peak trade value and would draw interest from a contender. Nick Young is still..Nick Young. But Clarkson is an asset for any team and he could even be good enough to start.
The Lakers could be opportunistic and use Clarkson in order to move one of their bad contracts (Timofey Mozgov, most likely). That would never work for just Williams or Young.
Still, Clarkson is solid contributor with an international fan base and has also been embraced by local Lakers fans. There are reasons why they could trade him, but whether they actually should is another question.