It's Groundhog Day for Lakers fans who get tricked by Myles Turner trade rumors again

If you were going to design the perfect frontcourt complement to Anthony Davis, the one he dreams about, the one who takes the pressure off him and allows him to play the 4 the way he prefers, the formula would be pretty clear.

It would be someone with the size and brawn to bang with opposing bigs and hold their own on the boards. Someone who is comfortable as a backline rim protector, both to anchor the defense in minutes Davis is on the bench and to allow him roam more and disrupt in space when they're on the court together.

On offense, it would be someone who doesn't need the ball in their hands. Someone who can finish around the rim, but also space the floor with gravity all the way out to the 3-point line, leaving room for Davis to work around the basket and setting up pick-and-pop options in screen-and-rolls with LeBron James.

Basically, it would be Myles Turner.

That's one of the reasons the Los Angeles Lakers have been linked with Turner in trade rumors going back at least as far as Sept. 2022.

However, after dangling him in trade talks for months, the Pacers ultimately signed him to an extension made him a key piece of their current iteration, the one that made the Eastern Conference Finals last season led by Turner and Haliburton.

The Pacers are currently 26-20, sitting in the No. 5 slot in the Eastern Conference, and Turner is averaging 15.6 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.9 blocks per game, shooting 40 percent from beyond the arc on 5.2 attempts per game. However, that two-year extension he signed with Indiana expires at the end of this season making him an unrestricted free agent. Marc Stein recently reported that the "Pacers' phones are undeniably ringing with interest in Myles Turner" and at least one sportsbook has the Lakers as heavy favorites to land Turner. Is this finally the year the Lakers get their man?

Will the Lakers be able to trade for Myles Turner?

Lakers fans know how this movie ends and, despite the odds, landing Turner seems extremely unlikely. Stein added in the same report that "the prevailing leaguewide sense, one week out from the trade buzzer, is that the Pacers do not want to trade Turner."

Even if they were going to make a trade, the Lakers can't really make a compelling offer. They don't have a replacement center to offer the Pacers, something they'd need to stay in the playoff hunt this season. To match salaries, the Lakers would have to offer something like Rui Hachimura or Jared Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent, along with at least one of their future first-round picks. They earliest pick they could trade would be 2029 which doesn't move the needle for the Pacers, and none of those player packages are that interesting given Indiana's depth on the wing and in the backcourt.

Sorry, Laker fans, but this one might just stay a fantasy.