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The Lakers look to add another shooter under Reddick and I believe Trent might take less than full MLE to join Lakers and try to re-enter free agency in 2026.

To Los Angeles Lakers (Trade Vincent, 2 2nds)
-S&T Gary Trent Jr (3 years, $33 million, 3rd year player option)

To Los Angeles Clippers (Trade Tucker)
-Gabe Vincent (2 years, $22.5 million)

To Toronto
-P.J. Tucker (1 year, $11.5 million)
-2025 Clippers 2nd round pick
-2027 Lakers 2nd round pick

Why?
-Lakers add yet another shooter as they have Russell and Schofino to play majority of minutes at the 1 with Bronny James a call up option.

Russell/Hood-Schofino/James
Trent/Knecht/Christie
Reaves/Reddish/Lewis
James/Hachimura/Vanderbilt
Davis/Wood/Hayes

-Clippers add PG depth while moving a guy who should retire

Westbrook/Hyland/Vincent
Harden/Mann/Coffey
Powell/Jones/Batum
Leonard/Brown/Jones?
Zubac/Bamba/Theis?

-Raps get 2 2nds as they don’t own a 2025 for a guy they don’t have minutes for anymore. They could keep Tucker for cultural purposes or just cut him.

Quickley/Mitchell/Liberty
Dick/Walter/Temple
Barrett/Agbaji/Vezenkov
Barnes/Olynyk/Mogbo/Tucker
Poeltl/Boucher

I mean if Trent on a S&T is worth 2 2nds and the Lakers are dumping the bad contract why are the Clippers paying for the Lakers?

Yah I don't understand the inclusion of the Clippers. Vincent has more years owed and there is a decent chance he's not a regular rotation piece for them.

I don't care for it for the Raptors, but there's no way GTJ is signing for less than the MLE but even if he did, are not the Lakers over the Apron and restricted from S&T's

Texas Chuck wrote:I mean if Trent on a S&T is worth 2 2nds and the Lakers are dumping the bad contract why are the Clippers paying for the Lakers?

So the Clippers should replace Tucker with Vincent for free? Regardless, as another poster noted, this trade is illegal since it would hard cap the Lakers at the 1st apron.

islandboy53 wrote:

Texas Chuck wrote:I mean if Trent on a S&T is worth 2 2nds and the Lakers are dumping the bad contract why are the Clippers paying for the Lakers?

So the Clippers should replace Tucker with Vincent for free? Regardless, as another poster noted, this trade is illegal since it would hard cap the Lakers at the 1st apron.

Tucker>Vincent, or at least less bad as he has 1 year less on his contract. Clippers should be paid for the swap

islandboy53 wrote:

Texas Chuck wrote:I mean if Trent on a S&T is worth 2 2nds and the Lakers are dumping the bad contract why are the Clippers paying for the Lakers?

So the Clippers should replace Tucker with Vincent for free? Regardless, as another poster noted, this trade is illegal since it would hard cap the Lakers at the 1st apron.

I think the Lakers should pay the Clippers. But maybe if they think Vincent would play a real role, then maybe a straight swap since the Clippers have to take that future year.

But I can't imagine paying positive value to take on Vincent.

Feels more like a midseason deal if GTJ ends up back in TOR on a deal like this or even a 1+1 to preserve his bird rights and try FA again next year with S&T options still in tact.

Maybe I'm scarred by him killing it vs. BOS in the playoffs before, but I like Vincent. He had an injury plagued, disastrous year last year but I believe he'll play well this year if healthy. I think PJ Tucker is totally washed up. I also think LAC will still be solid if Kawhi plays a fair amount. If all that happens, I could see Tucker plus second for a well-playing Vincent being viable.

Cant imagine Raptors going into the tax for 2nds

To take a player in a sign and trade, LAL would have to send out about 8 million more than they receive.

LAC are owed value in their swap.

Lakers can always use additional shooting but they just barely got under the 2nd apron thanks to Bron taking a slight pay cut so wouldn't be able to get Trent.

I don't think anyone is taking on Vincent until he can show he can stay healthy for a stretch of games.

Godaddycurse wrote:Cant imagine Raptors going into the tax for 2nds

This is the killer issue for this trade. Toronto sits at $161.8M for 14 players, with a second round pick (Mogbo) still to sign, leaving them about $6M below the tax line of $170.8M

The value difference between Vincent and Tucker can be closed; LAC could even be dropped from the trade; it is even possible that this could be part of a larger trade where LAL moves other salary and gets under the apron(s), although that probably makes it a losing trade from LAL's perspective.

But there is no way Toronto goes into the tax for 2 SRPs, so any S&T of Trent would need to include Vezenkov going out to make the numbers work, and I don't have the value difference between Trent and Vezenkov as enough (is it positive?) to make it worth it.

It's near impossible now for the Laker to clean out $23 mil in salary in order to sign any player to a tpMLE type deal. That ship sailed after Lebron signed his new deal. They are $45k under the 2nd apron. They would need a cap team to take 1-2 of their current vet min guys in order for them to sign another vet min guy in FA.

Maybe that happens but Trent would need to be willing to take a vet min type deal to restore his value for next year's FA.

oldncreaky wrote:

Godaddycurse wrote:Cant imagine Raptors going into the tax for 2nds

This is the killer issue for this trade. Toronto sits at $161.8M for 14 players, with a second round pick (Mogbo) still to sign, leaving them about $6M below the tax line of $170.8M

The value difference between Vincent and Tucker can be closed; LAC could even be dropped from the trade; it is even possible that this could be part of a larger trade where LAL moves other salary and gets under the apron(s), although that probably makes it a losing trade from LAL's perspective.

But there is no way Toronto goes into the tax for 2 SRPs, so any S&T of Trent would need to include Vezenkov going out to make the numbers work, and I don't have the value difference between Trent and Vezenkov as enough (is it positive?) to make it worth it.

Mostly agree with this. There’s a couple alternate versions I can think where a deal might make sense.

If LA wants to swap DLo, this could be a 3 team deal where DLo gets routed to Brooklyn…Trent to LA.

Alternately, IMO Bruce Brown makes more sense for LA, since they need a POA defender, and Brown can be a Derek Fisher like PG.

Reaves as a SF? JHS as the backup PG? Might as well hand the Cooper Flagg to Atlanta

Between the Lakers' apron issues and the Raptors' tax issues, this deal is DOA even before you get to discussing whether the value is correct (which, as others have noted, it's not).