According to NBA insider Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report, the Los Angeles Lakers have no interest in trading Dalton Knecht or Rui Hachimura.
Los Angeles already made one trade this season, sending D’Angelo Russell and Maxwell Lewis to the Brooklyn Nets for Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton.
“Competing executives have also told B/R that the Lakers (at least to date) have shown no interest in discussing trades that include Rui Hachimura or Dalton Knecht (or, obviously, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Austin Reaves, Bronny James, etc.),” Pincus wrote. “The two recently acquired players (Finney-Smith and Milton) cannot be aggregated in trade before the February 6 deadline—taking Milton out of the equation.”
The Lakers are interested in acquiring a center to play alongside Davis, who prefers to play the power forward position. They have been linked to Chicago Bulls All-Star Nikola Vucevic, Portland Trail Blazers big man Robert Williams and Washington Wizards veteran Jonas Valanciunas.
Knecht, the 17th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft out of Tennessee, is averaging 9.7 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 0.4 steals and 0.1 blocks this season while shooting 46.1% from the field, 35.4% from beyond the arc and 80.0% from the free-throw line.
Meanwhile, Hachimura is averaging 12.1 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 0.9 steals and 0.6 blocks while shooting 48.2% from the field, 42.2% from beyond the arc and 78.7% from the free-throw line.
The Lakers are in fifth place in the Western Conference standings under first-year head coach JJ Redick.
LAL is 20-15.
The Lakers are 14th in the NBA in points per game, 19th in points per game allowed, 11th in offensive rating, 21st in defensive rating and 18th in net rating.
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It’s great seeing some of what Rui H can do outside of Washington. He definitely fills a gap in LA. Seems like a great teammate too, unselfish, but not afraid to do his part when there’s an open shot, knows he can shoot, or take it to the rack. Good mentality for winning basketball..
Knecht looks great too. Sneaky athletic. His strong finishing at the rim is a something not a lot of great shooters do.
If there’s trying to win a chip this year with Bron, they have some tough decisions to make.
I’m not sure if Reaves is really untouchable. They don’t have any scapegoats left that I can think of. Will have to trade somebody they want to keep.
Oh no wait it’s LA, they can continue their under the table business to get lopsided trades and other teams to buy their guys out, end up as Lakers. I still can’t, I mean can believe the Nets opted for less from LA than from Memphis for DFS.