By CJ Carlson
LeBron James has been hearing about the trade deadline every single season for the past few years now. There’s a consensus amongst NBA fans that LeBron has similar say and power to that of a general manager. Many believe that it’s the reason his teams always make so many drastic overhauls to their rosters at the trade deadline, to try and build the best team around him and make him happy. Whether or not that’s the case doesn’t matter, what does matter is that LeBron is tired of even talking about the deadline.
The Los Angeles Lakers are struggling right now. They’re 21-21 on the season and are on a two-game winning streak, yet it doesn’t feel like they have everything figured out. Las Vegas has them ninth in the betting odds when it comes to winning the NBA championship. Right now, it certainly feels like those odds might even be generous given how they’ve played against some of the top-tier talent in the league. Of course, what comes with this struggle is the overall thought that changes need to be made to the roster.
LeBron James Doesn’t Play Fantasy Basketball
That’s where the trade deadline comes in. Los Angeles has once again been linked to a number of stars for the deadline such as Zach LaVine and Dejounte Murray. There were even links to rotational pieces such as Clint Capela and Tyus Jones. When reporters asked LeBron about the possibility of adding more talent at the deadline, he was blunt in his response. He said, “I don’t play fantasy basketball.
What I do is focus on the guys that’s here and in this uniform and show up to work every day. It’s too disrespectful to be thinking about what we need or what we don’t have. I don’t do that to my teammates. We’ve been putting in the work and that’s what we got to continue to do. We like the way we’ve been playing the last couple of games.”
With the February 8th deadline rapidly approaching, LeBron is hoping to stay as far out of it as possible. After all, there’s a genuine chance that the Lakers can overhaul their entire rotation. Players such as D’Angelo Russell, Rui Hachimura, and even Austin Reaves are eligible to be traded despite recently signing contracts with the team. The only real downside is that they don’t have draft capital to work with. General manager Rob Pelinka has one singular first-round pick that’s tradeable, and it won’t even be anywhere close. That first round pick would be as early as 2029 or 2030, so there won’t be a long line of teams hoping to get that.
