Lakers rumors: Why a Buddy Hield trade just won't work this time

Heading into last season, it seemed obvious the Los Angeles Lakers were pinning their hopes on a mid-season trade and the prevailing wisdom was that the Indiana Pacers would be on the other end.

The Pacers were rebuilding. They'd antagonized Myles Turner by signing Deandre Ayton to an offer sheet (which was ultimately matched by the Suns) and neither her nor veteran Buddy Hield seemed to match their timeline. The conventional wisdom was that, at some point, the Lakers would send Russell Westbrook and their 2027 and 2029 first-round picks to the Pacers for Turner and Hield — a clear win-win.

But the Pacers got off to a hot start. Turner found himself and had a career year, eventually signing an extension to stay in Indiana. Hield was phenomenal and his shooting was a hugely important scaffolding element for the rest of the Pacers' young guards. With Hield under contract for another year, the Pacers were under no pressure to trade him and took him off the market. The Lakers instead opted for a different package of trades that remade their roster and fueled a playoff run.

Yesterday, Shams Charania reported that extension talks between Hield and the Pacers had fallen apart and they were once again taking offers on him. There are a number of teams who will be interested and Hield could certainly still be a huge help for the Lakers. But, unfortunately for them, they probably can't make a trade work right now.

Why can't the Los Angeles Lakers trade for Buddy Hield?

There are a number of rules that need to be followed to make an NBA trade legal and several of these will handcuff the Lakers. The first challenge is that players who have signed new contracts can't be traded for a certain amount of time after signing their new deals.

In the case of most free agents, that just means they can't be traded until at least three months after their new deals become official. In the case of D'Angelo Russell, Gabe Vincent, Cam Reddish, Taurean Prince and Jaxson Hayes they can't be traded until Oct. 4. That's not a huge problem but it means the Lakers would need an offer good enough to have the Pacers wait around for roughly two weeks.

Players who signed with salary increases — Rui Hachimura and Austin Reaves — aren't eligible to be traded until Jan. 15 which means the Lakers would need to get the Pacers to wait months if they were going to be included in a deal. Anthony Davis almost certainly wouldn't be included in a Hield deal but he's off the table anyway because he just signed a max extension and thus can't be traded.

Another challenge for the Lakers is The Stepien Rule which dictates that a team can't go two consecutive drafts without a first-round pick. This means they can't trade all their first-round picks in consecutive seasons.

The Lakers owe their 2024 first-round pick to the Pelicans and their 2027 first-round pick to the Jazz. That means they can't trade their 2025, 2026 or 2028 first-round picks, meaning their 2029 first-round pick is the first and only pick they'd be able to include in a trade.

The last challenge is salary matching. Because the Lakers don't have any capspace they can only take back 110 percent of the salary they are sending out in the trade. So, to land Hield, they'd need to send out roughly $17.5 million in salary.

Put that altogether and we have essentially just two possible trade packages that are legal under league rules. The first would be D'Angelo Russell and their 2029 first-round pick. The second would be Gabe Vincent, Cam Reddish, Taurean Prince and their 2029 first-round pick. Even if the Lakers decided that those deals were worth it for them, which is a BIG if, it's hard to imagine either being interesting enough to the Pacers.

Anything is possible but Buddy Hield to the Lakers is pretty hard to imagine at this point.