Jeff Van Gundy already is jumping ship from the LeBron James-Los Angeles Lakers experiment.
The Lakers have been having a rough go of late, with the team in serious danger of missing the playoffs. And during LA’s loss to the Boston Celtics on Saturday night, Van Gundy started throwing out some wild ideas for the Lakers this offseason during the ESPN broadcast.
“I think in the offseason, they need to rebuild this roster, right? And to me, it could be a trade for an Anthony Davis, or I think they need to explore trading LeBron for getting as much as they can,” Van Gundy said, as transcribed by Yahoo! Sports’ Jack Baer. “You’ve got to get on the right timeline. I’m going to say, if I could trade him for the Clippers into cap space, which would give me a better chance to get Durant or Kawhi Leonard, would I not do that? … You’ve got to put everything on the table.”
(You can watch the exchange on the broadcast here.)
It’s no guarantee the Lakers would be able to land any of the players mentioned by Van Gundy, and if the Lakers did cut bait with James after signing him to a four-year deal, it would probably send a bad message to free agents regardless, so this is just a pretty bad take all around from the analyst.
There’s no doubt that James’ first season in Hollywood has been anything but glitz and glamour, and the fact that speculations like Van Gundy are even bubbling up goes to show how rough things have been for the Lakers this season.
