The Lakers got rid of a player they didn't want to give to anyone
The club from Los Angeles brought a veteran in the position of a playmaker. It looks like things are starting to line up in the NBA after Kevin Durant decided to stay in the NBA. Namely, ESPN journalist Adrian Wojnarowski announced that the Los Angeles Lakers and Utah Jazz agreed on a new trade involving three players.
The Lakers will thus get experienced veteran Patrick Beverley, while Talen Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson go in the opposite direction. This is the second time this summer that Beverley has been traded - he was part of the big deal that saw Rudy Gobert traded from the Jazz to Minnesota, and it was clear that the Salt Lake City team would not keep him until the end of the season because he did not fit into their creation plans new, young teams.
Beverley is known for his defense and trash talk, and in his career, he played for Houston, LA Clippers, and Minnesota. It will also be interesting to see how he works with Russell Westbrook, given that the two have been at odds for years. Now they are in the same team, and the question is, admittedly, whether Westbrook will see the start of the season with the Lakers because the team has been wanting to trade him for a long time.
The story with Horton-Tucker is also interesting. This 21-year-old was selected by the Lakers with the 46th pick in the 2019 draft, and in the first two seasons, he hinted at the potential that made the team not want to trade him last summer in any trades. In fact, because of Toronto and Sacramento's pursuit of his involvement in deals for Kyle Lowry and Buddy Hield, those two trades fell through. After that, Horton-Tucker had a bad season and is now being traded in a much smaller job. Stanley Johnson is involved in this business to make the salaries on both sides work. Admittedly, his departure means that the Lakers have opened another spot on the roster, so in a future deal they can theoretically bring two players for one...