With training camp only about three weeks away it’s now become make it or break it for the lakers they either enter training camp with Russell Westbrook on their roster or they make a trade with Utah Jazz as they appear to be the only team willing to fairly negotiate with them right now and according to tony jones of the athletic that is what the lakers might be trying to do he confirmed, that they’ve had conversation about making another trade and one that would involve Russell Westbrook and while he later deleted a tweet claiming that multiple players would be involved and that he knew which ones would likely be included, he did confirm their trade talks nonetheless now i will note they said nothing is imminent.
but multiple Utah Jazz twitter pages are reporting that they have indeed been talking and that much appears to be confirmed other than a trade involving patrick Beverley we had not heard reports about them talking until now and while we have no idea how far those trade talks have gone it does confirm that the lakers are still trying to trade Westbrook which they obviously are trying to hide too between Darvin Ham talking him up genie bus going out of her way to mention him lately and them including him in training footage they are doing everything they can to make it seem otherwise and not that they are wrong for doing that but even though they deny it’s become clear that they would prefer to move on from him and in reality keeping him would make training camp incredibly awkward not only in regard to his awkward fit on their team as i do not believe they built this team with him in mind but simply with everything that has gone on between them, i mean it would be putting it lightly to say that things went horribly wrong for them last season.
And the way Westbrook went about handling that only made it worse between him lacking accountability refusing to alter his game to help their team and dishing out needless blame during his final team interview there are definitely hard feelings here in addition to that his relationship with lebron obviously went downhill over time as well with them failing to see eye to eye throughout the season and seemingly avoiding each other throughout the summer but the final nail in the coffin was the addition of patrick Beverley and although reports claim that they’ve talked it out with each other i do not believe that is a risk worth taking we all know about their prior history and has gone far beyond the court as well it’s one thing for them to text each other but it’s another thing entirely to put them in the same locker room let alone have them face off every day during training camp that to me is a media crisis waiting to happen and one that i would want to avoid at all cost they cannot afford to waste their time during training camp either that is what they did last year, and we all know how that turned out they were incredibly lackadaisical with getting themselves ready, and they did not even play a majority of their team until the final preseason game.
They cannot afford to do that again simply to avoid interaction with Westbrook or to avoid playing him in an actual game and if the aforementioned trade talks are true then that is what they are trying to do with all of that in mind though what does their current training camp roster look like and why they continue to leave at least one spot open because right now they have 18 players on their 20 man training camp roster and it’s now been over a month since they’ve added anyone to it.
I mean they do have a little more time to do that but with the bronze annual pre-training cam team workout coming up it would only make sense for them to have their team figured out by then but for right now anyway it does not appear that, they have any intentions of doing that which to me likely means that they are saving room for an incoming player or two and if they were to make a trade with the Utah Jazz they would likely be getting back 2 3 or even four players in return and with that in mind they need to have room to take them in they had one spot open prior to trading for patrick Beverley but now the subtractions of Talen Horton tucker and Stanley Johnson they have two of them.
Which again they likely would have failed by now if they did not plan on making another trade after all there are plenty of quality free agents remaining and other than leaving room for a trade there is not really a reason for them passing up on them i mean you could maybe make an argument for saving money but that would only apply if they kept one spot open not two of them as they will soon be required to have 14 players on their roster what do you guys think though am i reading into this the wrong way or do you agree with it being a hint that they are trying to trade Westbrook let’s say that they were to end up keeping them though who should they look to fill their remaining training camp spots with and well i’m not a huge fan of the remaining summer league players with cole Swider, scotty pippin jr, jay huff and Javante McCoy already being invited i think they will be better off looking at free agency now i don’t think a guy like Dennis Schroder would agree to a training camp deal.
But maybe someone like Ben McLemore, Jeremy Lamb, Jordan Nowra or Timothe Luwawu Cabarrot would and i mentioned them because they are some of the best and most proven three-point shooting options remaining which continues to be their biggest need, i would definitely try to go with a wing player here but then again they cannot afford to get too picky and if they are unable to trade Westbrook these might be a few of their best options how about the idea of bringing back Carmelo Anthony though and well that ship appears to have sailed with mellow having been linked to a number of teams lately it began with the New York Knicks and then with the Brooklyn nets and Denver nuggets, And speculation that no longer appears to be the case though multiple media outlets now reporting on it and according to gray Washburn of the boston globe there is gaining traction on Melo ending up in boston following their loss of Danilo Gallinari they need a similar player to replace them with and in terms of who is available right now there is no better option for that than Carmelo Anthony they both play a power forward are great three-point shooters and can provide microwave scoring off the bench melo might be a bit older than him.
But he’s proven to be similarly if not more productive than galinari at this point even now at 38 Melo has proven to be a quality offensive player he is coming off of averaging over 13 points per game. shooting 44 from the field and over 37 percent from the three-point line on high-volume shooting the field goal percentage in particular is very impressive for him that is the highest mark for him in nearly a decade, and he quite obviously can still be a productive offensive player and with that in mind are the lakers making a mistake by letting him go he may not officially be gone yet but it probably won’t take much longer until he is and like i referred to before there is very little three-point shooting remaining mellow might be their best option at this point, and they do not appear to even be considering him to me that likely means they are confident in their ability to make a trade or in their ability for call spider to be their backup plan what do you guys think though do you believe they should let Carmelo Anthony walk and how do you feel about their training camp situation let me know your thoughts by commenting down.