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NBA rumors: Rich Paul suggests Lakers trade Austin Reaves for Jaren Jackson Jr.
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- NBA rumors: Rich Paul suggests Lakers trade Austin Reaves for Jaren Jackson Jr.
NBA rumors: Rich Paul suggests Lakers trade Austin Reaves for Jaren Jackson Jr. appeared first on ClutchPoints . Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here .
The Los Angeles Lakers have been on the struggle bus recently, dropping to 23-14 with a road loss to the Sacramento Kings on Monday night. LeBron James and Luka Doncic both played well in that game, but concerns about the Lakers' defense are not slowing down as the team falls down the Western Conference standings.
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Recently, James' agent Rich Paul took to the Game Over Podcast to discuss a trade candidate he thinks would help out the Lakers.
"If I was the Lakers I would be targeting the Memphis Grizzlies as a trade partner for Jaren Jackson… If you're building around Luka you need that anchor. Jaren doesn't want to be a part of a rebuild…" said Paul, per Heat Central on X, formerly Twitter.
Paul then floated the player who he thinks could be the centerpiece of the trade from the Lakers' side of things: Austin Reaves .
"There's a world you can do what's best for your team, and what's best for Austin. Austin deserves to get paid… Memphis would definitely pay Austin. He would become their leading scorer and PG," he said.
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Reaves has been out of the lineup due to injury for the last couple of weeks and will remain there for the foreseeable future. Before that, he had gotten off to an All-Star level start to the season, putting up some monster stat lines and carrying the Lakers' offense on nights when both Doncic and James were out of the lineup.
However, Reaves does not do much to help solve the Lakers' shortcomings on the defensive end of the floor, and some have found his offensive skillset to be a tad redundant with both James and Doncic in the fray, so if Los Angeles was able to parlay that into a player in Jackson who is a former Defensive Player of the Year, it would certainly be worth some consideration.
The Lakers will next take the floor on Tuesday night vs the Atlanta Hawks .
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