Hello, Lakers Nation. Welcome into a special weekend edition of the Lakersnation.com podcast.

I'm Trevor Lane. You can find me on Twitter at Trevor underscore Lane over on Instagram at Trevor Lane, NBA.

We've got a ton to get into today. The Lakers do take on the Detroit Pistons later on this afternoon.

We'll see if the Lakers can finish the road trip 500 if they can pick up a win over Detroit.

Sounds like LeBron James and Anthony Davis will go for this one,

both of them listed as probable.

So that is a good sign.

But we've got a few news topics to get into first.

Then I need to get into some questions and comments from the fans coming out of the previous

loss to the Philadelphia 76ers and overtime loss that didn't sit well with Lakers fans for a number of reasons. But first, let's talk a little bit about the trade from. We know December 15th is getting that much closer. We know that it's going to be an important date. It's usually when trade talks pick up doesn't mean something is happening that day. It just means more players will hit the trade market. A lot of the guys who signed deals last summer will become trade eligible. So of course,

trades are going to become a bigger part of the discussion this time of year.

Kyle Kuzma is the name that's been out there. A guy that the Lakers saw just a few games ago

against the Washington Wizards. And well, it's ironic, but he would actually be a great fit. I know the Lakers just had him on their roster not that long ago, sent him away in the Russell Westbro trade. We always assume that, well, the Lakers, if they trade away Kyle Kuzma, they're going to go get someone else to fill that role, right? No, I guess not. They've been deciding they just don't need wings with size and three-point shooting ability. Now, Kyle Kuzma could be out there on the trade market. According to Eric Pinkis, a bleacher report, an NBA source told him that Kyle Kuzma wants out of Washington, would like to get to a championship contender, would like to get to a bigger market. Now, Kuzma did have some comments the other day where he talked about not playing behind LeBron and AD anymore. And the benefit of that didn't sound like somebody who is itching to return to L.A. But nonetheless, I still think the Lakers could be an interesting landing spot. And Pancas does mention the Lakers could have interest in him. But here's the challenge. Look, the Lakers, what they need, it's clear. It's size on the wings. I'm going to get into that in just a minute when we take a look at the Lakers minutes distribution that we saw in the overtime loss to the 76ers. It's quite troubling. But Kyle Kuzma would give you the size that you're looking for on the wing, give you some shooting ability, give you some playmaking, switchability on the defensive end checks a lot of boxes for what the lakers are

looking for here's the problem though everybody else is looking for that too the phoenix songs

new york nix also teams that would be interested in kuzma and i'm sure the list would be much

longer than that should he actually hit the market another complicating factor he can be a free agent

this summer which means there is a little bit of a flight risk there where if you go trade for Kyle Kuzma, there's the potential that he just walks away next summer, gets a bigger offer somewhere else, probably looking for something north of $20 million. And given the value of wings in this league, I would be surprised if he doesn't get that number. So Kyle Kuzma could be a really interesting target for the Lakers,

but won't be easy to get him. I think if the Wizards do ultimately put him out there on the trade market. If they decide, you know what, we're not going to be able to keep this guy next summer or we just don't want to pay him what it is that he wants. I think they're going to have plenty of suitors. So the Lakers, if they want to bring Kyle Kuzma back, are going to have plenty of competition trying to do so.

Now, another thing that Pinkis mentioned was that the Lakers would have interest in both Demarta Rosen and Nikola Vucevich from the Chicago Bulls. We've heard rumblings out of Chicago that they're probably not interested in trading those guys right now. Maybe something changes by the trade deadline. and that could be part of the problem here for the Lakers is you've got so many teams that are still in wait and C mode, whereas the Lakers, they're looking at the Western Conference and saying, let's do something right now. We've got upward mobility right now. If we can win some games, if we can improve this roster, we can really make a move. And the longer we wait, if we wait until February 9th to make a deal, well, that means the effects, the positive effects of making a trade are going to be that much more limited because you're going to have so much of the season gone already. So for the Lakers, it makes more sense to make a move as soon as possible. But a lot of other teams simply aren't ready to do that if they want to Marta Rosen and Nikola Busevich, which I've talked about the pros and cons of that on past shows. But if they want those two guys, Chicago probably isn't ready to pull the trigger just yet. And so then it becomes a waiting game. And for the Lakers, the longer you wait, the less time you have to move up in the standings in the Western Conference.

So something to consider as we start moving into trade discussions and start talking about

this more and more.

It's not just about what the trade is.

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