The Los Angeles Lakers could make a championship run this season but it still feels like they might to do some roster tinkering before they’re truly contenders. One player who has been mentioned in a lot of trade rumors is forward Jarred Vanderbilt.
The last two seasons have been detailed by injuries but he’s healthy now and is a key part of the Lakers’ rotation. While he’s one of the team’s best defenders, he’s mostly a non-factor on offense.
He’s averaging just 4.0 points a game this season and hitting 28.1% of his 3-point shots. The Lakers are going to want to add some more size in the offseason and Vanderbilt figures to be one of their most likely trade chips.
The problem is that teams around the NBA might not be that high on him. According to The Athletic’s Jovan Buha, opposing teams don’t value Vanderbilt the way the Lakers do.
“People outside of the Lakers seem to be lower on (Vanderbilt) than the Lakers are,” Buha said on his YouTube channel. “I think there is a little bit of a gap there in terms of how people perceive him and how the Lakers perceive him.”
While he’s a very good defender, it’s hard to give minutes to a player who poses virtually no threat on offense.
Should Lakers Trade Vanderbilt?
When the Lakers traded Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis, they added one of the best offensive players in the NBA but gave up one of the best defensive players. Los Angeles has some plus defenders like LeBron James, Dorian Finney-Smith and Vanderbilt but that’s about it.
Vanderbilt has a very tradeable contract, which is why he’ll likely be mentioned in rumors this offseason. If he can improve as a 3-point shooter, he’d be a very valuable player. He doesn’t need to be a superstar but if he could just shoot over 35% from beyond the arc, he’d have a long career making good money in the NBA.
If he’s not very valuable, the Lakers may just decide to hold onto him. A full offseason healthy could lead to a major improvement in his offensive game.
Are Lakers Ready for the Playoffs?
The Lakers were red hot after they traded for Doncic and got as high as No. 2 in the Western Conference standings. However, things haven’t been as easy in recent weeks. The team is 5-5 in their last 10 and is coming off a brutal loss to the Golden State Warriors.
For a moment, it looked like the Lakers should be in the conversation for championship favorites but the team hasn’t looked nearly as good recently. They’ve fallen to fourth in the Western Conference and are just 1.5 games from being in the play-in tournament.
The Lakers’ schedule also doesn’t get much easier as three of their last six games are against the top two sees in the Western Conference. Los Angeles can’t afford to lose any of the three games against teams with losing records. If they don’t get back on track soon, they could be looking at an early playoff exit, which would be very disappointing considering how they looked after the All-Star break.
