Rich Paul suggests the Lakers trade Austin Reaves for Jaren Jackson Jr.
The The Los Angeles Lakers were on the battle bus recently, fell to 23-14 from the road loss to the Sacramento Kings on Monday evening. LeBron James and Luka Doncic played well in that game, but concerns about the Lakers’ defense persist as the team falls in the Western Conference standings.
Recently, James’ agent, Rich Paul, visited the Game Over podcast discuss the trade candidate he thinks he would help the Lakers.
“If I were the Lakers, I’d target the Memphis Grizzlies as a trade partner for Jaren Jackson. . . . If you’re building around Luke, you need that anchor. Jaren doesn’t want to be part of the rebuild. . . ,” Paul said, per Heat Central on X, formerly Twitter.
Paul then pushed the player he thinks could be the centerpiece of a trade from the Lakers side: Austin Reaves.
“There’s a world where you can do what’s best for your team and what’s best for Austin. Austin deserves to be paid … Memphis would definitely pay Austin. He’d become their best scorer and player,” he said.
Reaves has been out of the lineup with an injury for the past few weeks and will remain there for the foreseeable future. Before that, he hit an All-Star level early in the season, putting up some monster stat lines and carrying the Lakers’ offense on nights when Doncic and James were out.
However, Reaves doesn’t do much to help address the Lakers’ deficiencies on the defensive end of the floor, and some felt his offensive skill set was a bit redundant with both James and Doncic in the mix, so if Los Angeles was able to turn that into former Defensive Player of the Year Jackson, some would certainly consider it worthwhile.
The Lakers will next take the floor on Tuesday night against the Atlanta Hawks.
2026-01-13 16:54:00
