Lakers Roundtable: Is it worth trading Brandon Ingram for Kawhi Leonard?

Isaac’s take:

To me, this isn’t even a question. The answer is an emphatic yes. Yes, usually Brandon Ingram is the one prospect who is off the table, but things change when an opportunity to acquire a top-five player in the league is presented.

While Ingram’s ceiling is sky high, the VERY best case scenario, which is highly unlikely, is that Ingram becomes a top 10 player in the league. Leonard is already just that.

There is almost no reasonable scenario that includes Ingram becoming a better player than what a healthy Leonard already is today. Not to mention he is only 26 years old, so his true peak is still a few years away.

If the team were to bring in Kawhi, they’d be an even more desirable free agency destination than they already are, making it far more likely that they will be able to attract that second all-star to use their insane amount of cap room on, such as Paul George.

The floor for your team’s success when you have a player of Leonard’s caliber is very high. You can look at a team such as the Thunder last season, or the Pelicans now. Even with a pretty bad team around their superstar, they’re still a pretty respectable team. With a supporting cast better than both of those examples, the Lakers would immediately be taken into the same tier as those teams with the arrival of Leonard.

Any way you look at it, the team would be in a much better state if Leonard was traded for, regardless of the compensation.