Hello, Lakers Nation. Welcome in Trevor Lane here for Lakers Nation.com with a bonus podcast episode because it's game day again. Lakers, second night of a back-to-back tonight taking on the Minnesota Timberwolves, obviously a frustrating stretch in the season for the Lakers. They've lost their last three in a row, including last night to the Chicago Bulls. Can the Lakers bounce back tonight against Minnesota? Certainly not going to be easy. Minnesota. So far this season, the number one team in the Western Conference. Yikes. Lakers have a tall task ahead of them. Also, I'm going to dive into the mailbag, a lot to get into there.

But first, the Zach Levine situation, Yovan Buha of the athletic, put out there that the Lakers would see themselves as doing a favor for the Chicago Bulls if they were to take on

Zach Levine's contract.

Now, we've talked a lot about Levine's contract because it is really important when we're

looking at this situation.

Zach Levine is a wonderful basketball player.

He would definitely help out this Lakers team if, if he's healthy, which right now he's not.

He's currently not healthy, not able to play.

And the Bulls have gotten better without him. We saw it

last night. That Bulls team was pretty good. They played hard. They hit big shots. Two things the

Lakers didn't do. Ouch. But the Chicago Bulls look better without Zach Levine, which does not help

the market for Levine, which right now is non-existent.

No one wants to trade for Zach Levine.

So the Lakers see Zach Levine's contracts, see that he's making over $40 million per year

for the next three years, including a player option in the final year.

And on top of the fact that he's not a 1A superstar, yet he's being paid as though he is a top

tier player in this league. And while the Lakers say, why should we help the Bulls by taking

this contract off their hands, particularly if we have to surrender assets on top of that.

Now, the Lakers, given their offensive shortcomings, which were apparent last night, you could argue that Zach Levine could give them the shot in the arm that they need on that end of the floor. There's no question. Again, he's a good player. He would be useful for the Lakers. But are there better options? That's really the question here. It's not so much the Lakers get better with Zach Levine. Sure, if you want to tell me the Bulls are going to do Ruey Hutcham Row and DeAngelo Russell, put them together, throw in a contract like a Gabe Vincent or somebody like that, and they're good just clearing the contract off their books. They're not going to ask for Austin Rees, they're not going to ask for future capital,

they're not going to want Max Christie or some other young player thrown in?

Sure, why not?

Go ahead.

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