Lakers tried to trade Westbook for John Wall again:
The Lakers engaged the Houston Rockets in discussions centered on a Russell Westbrook-John Wall swap that stalled with the Rockets expressed interest in further compensation beyond the 2017 league MVP, sources told ESPN. L.A. also had traction on a three-team deal involving the Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks on Wednesday, that would have involved trading away third-year guard Talen Horton-Tucker, but that also fell apart because of draft picks that would have needed to be included, sources told ESPN.
Zach Lowe had a better deal idea:
The Lakers were resistant to offering their 2027 first-round pick -- the only one they can offer -- in trade talks, including as the carrot in a potential exchange of John Wall and Russell Westbrook, sources say. A deal I'd have pitched: Westbrook, Talen Horton-Tucker and that 2027 first-rounder for Wall and Eric Gordon. Does that change your life? Maybe not. But LeBron is 37, and this team looks broken. Maybe a better deal will come along in the offseason.
Eric Gordon is having a really good shooting season for such a garbage team, seems like a good player to have tried to kick the tires on as that three point bomber guard they've mostly failed to find all season. Wall hasn't played in almost a year.
Brian Windhorst said the Lakers were trying to get Christian Wood too but that was probably asking for too much imo.
In other Big Three news, the Durant-Harden-Irving era ends with them having played a whopping 16 games together. Harden apparently was checked out to start the season before Durant inspired him a little but he totally lost interest after Durant got hurt and didn't care at all about Kyrie. He'd told the Nets he was probably going to Philly after the season anyway unless they won a title and they were prepared to shut him down for the year if they couldn't trade him. Ben Simmons intends on trying to play for the Nets this year. Morey gets his man, the whole saga started because Morey tried to trade Simmons to Houston for Harden.
Harrell to Hornets and White to Celtics are nice little moves probably. Them and Bucks probably real winners of the deadline deals unless Harden turns out to be the championship piece for the Sixers. McCollum, Sabonis and Porzingis deals probably won't do anything this year beyond maybe putting someone (New Orleans?) in the playin to lose but could be fun next year.
Kevin Pelton noted that the Thunder not making any trades to suck up somebody's ending contract means they'll probably fall well under the salary floor required which means everybody on the team gets a payday!
