Lakers Rumors Roundup: Bojan Bogdanovic trade unlikely, Lakers waiting until summer for trade?

Jan 31, 2023 - 12:48 AM

The Lakers finally made a trade this season but with draft assets and tradeable contracts still available and the trade deadline little more than a week away, the pressure is still on the Lakers to make another move.

That remains the focus of the latest rumors and headlines from today.

Bojan Bogdanovic staying in Detroit?

In a recent interview with Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, Bojan Bogdanovic might have offered a little peek at the Pistons’ plans for the trade deadline and his future in Detroit (h/t Detroit Bad Boys).

“Having conversations with the club, Troy (Weaver), and the owners, they assured me that we’re going to be great next year,” Bogdanovic told HoopsHype. “We have a lot of cap space to sign great players. We’re going to have a high pick again, so that’s going to help us a lot. We have a great young group of guys. When Cade (Cunningham) went down, that kind of hurt us big time. We were thinking that maybe we’d be fighting for the play-in tournament, but when he went down, he was our main guy. All of our offensive strategies were connected to him. When he went down, our season, we’ve had a lot of ups and downs without him.”

It’s not a lot, but if Bogdanovic is having conversations with the general manager and owners about the future, it probably means it’s going to take one hell of an offer to pry him away from Detroit. Bogdanovic also addressed the rumors straight up, though he gave a very cliche response.

“I heard the rumors, but I’m trying to stay away from those conversations,” Bogdanovic told HoopsHype. “I don’t even have any social media like Twitter. I don’t read much about that. It’s not in my control. It’s about the franchises. I’m just going to try and stay focused and play as best I can. Then, we’ll see what’s going to happen at the end of the trade deadline.”

The Pistons have held out for a big offer and this just further suggests they’re serious about not trading Bogdanovic unless they’re blown away. which reports have basically already indicated by their high asking price.

Lakers eyeing summer blockbuster trade?

If you thought you had heard enough about the Lakers possibly trading the 2027 and 2029 first round picks, wait until we add ANOTHER draft pick to possibly trade. At least, that’s what the Lakers themselves may be thinking.

On the first episode of Marc Stein and Chris Haynes’ #thisleague podcast, Haynes says the Lakers have already talked about heading into the offseason ready to potentially trade three first round picks.

For those unclear, on top of the ‘27 and ‘29 picks, the Lakers would be trading the rights to the 2023 pick as the only other way to trade three first round picks. Don’t worry, I can sense your excitement of five more months of debate like the last nine months.

Waiting to judge the Lakers

The Lakers love nothing more in recent years than giving reasons as to why you can’t judge the whole team yet. And it’s almost always injury related, as it was most recently when Jeanie Buss mentioned it to Stephen A. Smith on the K[No]w Mercy podcast.

“I think as we get healthy, then we’ll know what we have. We really can’t judge what the team is going to be without the star player, Anthony Davis, who we built the team around. When your star goes down, there’s very few teams that can continue to win when their top player is out. LeBron has, obviously, impressed everybody with his spectacular player. It doesn’t seem to be that time has the same effect on him that it does on everybody else.”

I’d make a joke, but it’s just depressing at this point. Depressing that they’ve had so many injuries. Depressing the front office has had the same stance for multiple seasons. Depressing that the roster can’t be judged without everyone healthy, a tough ask for any team in any season.

Just quit making it so exhausting to root for this franchise.

For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.