Nikola Vucevic Trade Rumors: 5 Teams That Should Trade For Magic C

5. Los Angeles Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers are a proud and once prestigious franchise, and though their youth movement was exciting at first, optimism has come crashing back down to earth ever since the team’s unsustainable 7-5 start. They call them “growing pains” for a reason.

D’Angelo Russell has dealt with injuries and, simply put, hasn’t been very good. Jordan Clarkson is a useful bench scorer, but little else. Julius Randle has shown the most promise to this point, but that’s not saying much. Brandon Ingram has teetered much closer to “draft bust” territory than “next franchise star.”

That’s not to say the Lakers should panic and start dealing away developing players for proven talent, but in a frontcourt that’s featured heavy doses of Tarik Black and Timofey Mozgov, a slight upgrade could be in order, especially if they can get Mozzy’s disastrous four-year, $64 million contract off the books.

In this deal, the Magic have to take on one of the worst contracts in the league, but they also net a future first round pick for their troubles — one that could potentially be valuable as the Lakers continue to suffer from delusion that their rebuild shouldn’t take that much longer.

The Lakers, meanwhile, get that appalling Mozgov contract off the books and add a walking double-double to their starting lineup. Ivica Zubac can learn from Vucevic until he’s ready to surpass him as the Lakers’ starting center.

However, taking on that Mozgov contract is a heavy burden when the Lakers may not be able to offer a first-rounder until 2021 (if they send this year’s top-three protected pick to Philly and a 2019 first-rounder to Orlando, that is).

A first-rounder of any sort might be pushing it for the Lakers in a Vucevic swap, especially since they could just keep what they have and let Zubac benefit from a dearth of frontcourt talent. As for the Magic, they could probably do better on the trade market anyway.