Phoenix Suns: 10 potential Eric Bledsoe trades
4. Los Angeles Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers need to shed salary to keep their lofty free agency dreams alive. McDonough may have missed the boat on D’Angelo Russell in the Lakers’ Timofey Mozgov salary dump, but Luol Deng is the other elephant in the room.
Yes, taking on the remaining three years and $54 million of his contract would suck. And yes, he’d be stuck on a team that already has T.J. Warren and Josh Jackson at the 3. Maybe that alone is enough to dissuade McDonough from making such a move rather than preserving long-term cap space.
But if the Suns are even remotely interested in someone like Kyle Kuzma or Julius Randle, this is how you get there.
Russell was the best sweetener the Lakers had to offer in one of their two predictable salary dumps, so perhaps it’s not even worth it at this point. But Kuzma has looked phenomenal through NBA Summer League, preseason and his first few appearances of the regular season.
He may not have the highest ceiling at age 22, but he’s put up 14.5 points per game on 53.5 percent shooting through the first four games of his career. The Lakers would be selling high here, and they’d be foaming at the mouth at the prospect of adding someone like Bledsoe who could attract his buddy LeBron James or former Kentucky teammate DeMarcus Cousins this summer.
The Lakers already have Lonzo Ball at the point, but Bledsoe could play off the ball or vice versa. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has looked good at the 2 so far, but he’s playing on a one-year “prove it” deal. It’s not like L.A. would turn down a legitimate two-way player like Bledsoe simply to see what it has with KCP, who might be gone anyway if the Lakers attract the stars they really want.
Randle is the other option. Though he’s less desirable given his contract situation (he’ll be a restricted free agent in 2018), there’s no denying the kid can play. That clogs up the 4-spot between Randle, Chriss and Bender, but bringing in Kuzma would do the same for either the 3 (Warren, Jackson) or the 4.
Again, the Suns may have already missed their best chance at a Lakers fire sale with D’Angelo Russell, so they’d have to be damn sure they like either Kuzma or Randle if they were going to take on Deng’s awful contract. That’s where the future first-rounder comes in, which might be the difference between a deal going through or being shot down.