Los Angeles Lakers: Three ways to trade the first-round pick
By Jason Reed
2. Trading up in the first round
Sorry, Josh Hart, you are going to be included in another trade with this draft pick. As promising and young as Hart is, he is the most expendable piece if the Los Angeles Lakers did want to move up in the first round.
The Lakers could try and package the deal with Kyle Kuzma to move very high up in the draft but that would not make sense in the long-term. Thus, trading Hart and the pick to move up to the late lottery picks would be more probable. LA would essentially be trading Hart to draft someone with size the team loves earlier in the round; size being something the team needs.
The most probable and probably the best team to try and do business with is the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers own the 12th and 13th best picks in the 2018 NBA Draft, depending on how the lottery pans out and may be willing to trade one pick down if the offer is right.
Acquiring an asset like Hart that has already proven himself in the NBA would be the better route for the Clippers to go if the team does not love another prospect at this point in the draft. Meanwhile, if the Lakers love someone, this trade makes a ton of sense.
The chances of this happening are pretty slim as it would require the Lakers to be all-in on one of the prospects in the draft. As time goes on though, we may begin hearing which prospects the Lakers love. If one of them is touted higher in the draft, trading up for them may be too intriguing for the Lakers to pass on.