Lakers Trade Rumors: LA Talks to Rockets on PJ Tucker Agreement

We already knew the Lakers were interested in a deal for Houston Rockets forward PJ Tucker, but after the disgruntled veteran put out Houston’s 14th straight loss Thursday night, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski dropped the bomb: the Lakers have officially held talks. with the Rockets over Tucker.

According to Wojnarowski, they are not the only team that did this:

The Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat and Brooklyn Nets are among teams that have discussed possible deals with the Rockets over the past few weeks, sources said.

So far, the Rockets’ preference for a young, productive rotation player in trade talks has been a bottleneck for teams that have not yet been willing to participate in that kind of asset for a 35-year-old on a running contract. , sources said.

As we discussed earlier, the Lakers have young, productive rotation players like Kyle Kuzma and Talen Horton-Tucker, but not the salary ballast to make a deal they are involved in work very easily. However, if the Rockets are willing to be flexible about how ‘young’ the productive rotation player is, the Lakers may have something that can work (via ESPN’s trading machine):

At 27, Harrell is a more productive player than the 35-year-old Tucker. So much is not really a debate. What is a debate is whether the Lakers would be better served by giving him to a player who might lower the floor of the regular season but raise their playoff ceiling.

We have been hearing for weeks how the Lakers are interested in basically every center that could even theoretically be available in a buyout. The problem with these rumors is that one of the guys is unlikely to be good enough to play over Marc Gasol or Harrell, and certainly not a better option than Davis on the five, where he was most productive during the playoffs and will definitely play more than the post-season roll around.

With Tucker, the Lakers would get a super-laden version of the type of small-ball four that Markieff Morris served them in the bubble last season, which got a stronger defender and a better career shooter (Morris made a little more this season, but Tucker is better in the course of his career) which would have the potential to make the best players of Lakers even better and give them the space to sign the more traditional rugby center they clearly want in the buyout market. For the Rockets, this deal will give them a younger, better player in an airspace they can try to sign this summer rather than losing Tucker for free.

Again, Harrell is the best individual basketball player here, but in the playoffs his usefulness can be limited, and his defensive mistakes more easily exposed by purposeful game planning by other teams. He’s also a guy who is unlikely to close out many games for the Lakers at the moment. By dropping him for Tucker, they can balance their roster the way they apparently want for the post-season, while finding a player who might be able to play more minutes for them once they’re there, and definitely more will have confidence in Frank Vogel defensively than Harrell was given.

The trade deadline is March 25, and it will certainly not be the last time we hear from Tucker. And who knows, if he and the Rockets reach a total stalemate, they might buy him and let the Lakers get him for free, and they can get him and Harrell. Or maybe he was really washed and it would not be better in a winning situation. It is always possible. But that’s the type of gamble that might be worth making, and at least Tucker will be a name to watch over the next two weeks as the Lakers figure out what adjustments they want to make to their roster.

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