What should the Lakers prioritize on the trade market?

A wild week for the Lakers saw them extend their winning streak at the start of it before suffering two pretty demoralizing losses by the end of it.

It’s clear the Lakers could be something this season, but can they get their act together and make the right moves? And what are those moves to make?

Let’s dive into that and more in this week’s mailbag episode.

I agree that the Lakers have more needs than they can fill and will have to prioritize. To me, I think a 3-and-D wing would be at the bottom of that list because they have enough of them, if healthy, between Dalton Knecht, Jarred Vanderbilt (in theory) and Rui Hachimura.

Which leaves the other two. I would say a backup center is the bigger need. While Jaxson Hayes has been a positive relative to expectations this season, I do not trust him in a playoff series and he can not provide the things the Lakers lack, particularly on defense and as a rebounder.

Having someone like a Jonas Valančiūnas or Brook Lopez allows you to the luxury of deploying Anthony Davis in other ways defensively outside of standing in the paint as a rim protector.

I really think there is just an unnecessary amount of scrutiny on the Lakers about this. They drafted Maxwell Lewis with a higher pick last year, treated him largely the same as they are Bronny in regards to how often he’s in the G League and there wasn’t any comments like this last year.

There were also comments about the Lakers not making a good faith effort in developing Bronny, and I’d ask how? Bronny is regularly practicing and working with the South Bay Lakers. Is he really losing that much but not playing in road games? That feels like a small thing to be hung up on.

I think there are skills there that are pretty easy to see as developing and translating to the NBA. He’s already a strong point-of-attack defender, and that’s going to be his path. Finding an offensive role will be the mission over the next two seasons.