The Los Angeles Lakers are well under .500, don’t have a first-round pick in this year’s NBA Draft, and with the 2018 NBA trade deadline bearing down faster by the day, one of the biggest remaining questions is whether or not president of basketball operations Magic Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka will make a deal.
The front office pairing is in their first full year together, but given that one of Johnson’s first moves after seizing power last year was to trade veteran guard Lou Williams for an extra first-round pick, and how quickly and decisively he and Pelinka pulled the trigger in sending D’Angelo Russell to the Brooklyn Nets in order to get them to take on Timofey Mozgov’s albatross of a contract, speculation has run rampant about what moves the two will make by Feb.