Los Angeles Lakers: A month later and the Ivica Zubac trade was awful
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers traded Ivica Zubac and Michael Beasley to the Los Angeles Clippers for Mike Muscala in a trade that has not worked out.
The Los Angeles Lakers made a shocking trade at the NBA Trade Deadline, trading Ivica Zubac and Michael Beasley to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for Mike Muscala.
Fans were pretty outraged when the trade first happened as Zubac had emerged as a role player on this team the weeks prior. While we understood that sentiment, we were actually pretty quick to defend the trade due to the reasoning behind it.
Now, nearly a month since the trade, it has become clear that this was an absolutely awful trade by the Los Angeles Lakers. All of the reasoning that was present when the trade happened does not really hold up and Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka clearly lost.
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Let’s break down some of the reasons why this trade was made and why this does not hold up.
One of the potential reasons was that the Los Angeles Lakers were not going to re-sign Zubac this season anyway. Zubac is a restricted free agent after this season and the Lakers would have to match any offer sheet given to him to keep him.
With the focus on bringing in other superstars, the Lakers would have likely rejected to match. Thus, instead of losing him for nothing they got something out of him. But they did not get much.
Muscala hasn’t done anything on the Lakers. He averages 10 minutes per game, 3.2 points and is shooting 28.6 percent from three-point land. The “three-point specialist” hasn’t been special at all.
Meanwhile, Zubac has continued nearly the exact same production on the Clippers. While his numbers are not eye-popping, he is averaging 18.6 points and 12 rebounds per 36 minutes this season.
The Lakers would have been better off with Zubac and could have still let him walk this offseason, just as Mike Muscala is going to walk as a free agent. Sure, they would not be getting anything for Zubac but at least they would be better now.
The other main reason why this trade was made was to open up a roster spot, hence why Beasley was included. Zubac had to be included to get a team to take Beasley and if the Lakers did not plan on re-signing him it made sense to trade him.
The only problem is the Lakers have done absolutely nothing with that open roster spot. The team has whiffed on every bought out player and it might get to the point where if they do bring in someone it will be too late.
There is the elephant in the room in Carmelo Anthony but the team still has not pulled the trigger, implying that they are waiting on someone to be bought out or simply do not want Anthony.
Either way, the Lakers have done absolutely nothing with that open roster spot and there are fewer than 20 games remaining. That trade literally seems pointless.
Next. Lonzo is the biggest winner of the Lakers losing. dark
I understood the logic then of trading Zubac and it did make sense if the Los Angeles Lakers played their cards right. However, literally nothing has come out of this trade and the Clippers were the obvious winners.