The Los Angeles Lakers appear to prefer a trade of Russell Westbrook for Kyrie Irving, but with the Brooklyn Nets seemingly unprepared to make such a move until resolving the Kevin Durant situation, Rob Pelinka has engaged on other scenarios.
The Lakers nearly traded for Buddy Hield last July before pivoting to Russell Westbrook and they appear to be attempting to trade for him again now that he’s on the Indiana Pacers.
“There is no traction on a deal that would involve sending Russell Westbrook out and bringing Kyrie Irving in,” said Dave McMenamin.
“One thing I have learned over the last day or two, tangentially, there has been some talks reengaged between the Lakers and Indiana Pacers. Now, that would center around a Buddy Hield deal and could it be that would include Russell Westbrook in terms of also having Myles Turner in that deal? Or perhaps it could be a secondary move where you would be talking about a Talen Horton-Tucker type of package to try to get Buddy Hield deal so we would see whether that would affect Russell or not.