As the NBA regular season starts winding down, the Los Angeles Lakers will shift their attention to what awaits them in the summer, including free agency, where they’re hoping to make a splash, and the 2018 NBA draft.
While the Lakers don’t have their own first round pick after giving it up in the now infamous 2012 Steve Nash trade, they managed to acquire the Cavaliers’ first-rounder at the trade deadline in the package deal that brought Isaiah Thomas and Channing Frye to Los Angeles.
The pick is top-three protected, but even if the Cavs lost every game for the rest of the season, they’d still finish with a winning record and the Lakers would still get their pick.