Los Angeles Lakers: Three players they could draft in the summer of 2018
By Keith Rivas
The Los Angeles Lakers don’t own a first round pick, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make the second round interesting.
Alright, so if you’re the Los Angeles Lakers, you’ve got some thinking to do ahead of the summertime. It’s around the corner, but will approach even quicker if the team is not prepared for some franchise-altering decisions.
By then, let’s hope they’ve decided on a few things before free agency or the draft even enter the picture. First, let’s assume that they decide to at least trade either Julius Randle or Jordan Clarkson. Trading both wouldn’t be in the best interest of the team with the way that they’ve been playing as of late, but let’s assume for the sake of what to look for in the draft that one of them is gone (pick one).
Once that’s established, let’s also assume that the Lakers decide to not re-sign Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who has a deal that expires at the end of this season after being paid $17 million last off-season.
These are all likely moves, so they are not crazy to speculate about. In this position, the Lakers will be in need of a shooting guard if they choose not to give Josh Hart more minutes or are uncertain to any extent that he can handle the burden. They should also be looking for a center, as power forward won’t be an issue to replace in the starting five even if it’s Julius Randle that’s out of town.
That’s because Kyle Kuzma and Larry Nance Jr. are more than capable of the task at hand there. The Lakers don’t own the rights to a first round pick, but hold one in the second round thanks to the Denver Nuggets.
It is ultimately dependent on how the Nuggets finish this season, but as of this writing Los Angeles would have the 47th overall pick. Let’s take a look at three candidates to join the young core in purple and gold.