Ranking the 4 best in-season trades in Lakers history

The Los Angeles Lakers didn't become one of the NBA's preeminent franchises overnight. The Lake Show has been blessed over the decades with outstanding ownership in Jack Kent Cooke and Dr. Jerry Buss, visionary executives like Bill Sharman and Jerry West, Hall-of-Fame coaches like Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, and a list of all-time great players that only the Boston Celtics could hope to rival.

No team has been as successful as the Lakers in attracting superstar talent. L.A. has signed pantheon guys like LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal in free agency, drafted players such as Jerry West, Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant, and traded for franchise-altering talents like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anthony Davis.

Many of the Lakers' greatest trades have occurred in the offseason, but with the NBA trade deadline approaching, we thought it would be the perfect time to look back on some of the best in-season Lakers trades of all-time. Here are the four greatest in franchise history.

Ranking the four greatest Lakers in-season trades of all-time

4. Lakers get Bob McAdoo from the New Jersey Nets for a second-round pick and cash (1981)

Not many basketball stars are able to gracefully transition into effective bench players in their twilight years, but Bob McAdoo proved to be the exception to the rule. The former Rookie of the Year, MVP and three-time scoring champ (he averaged 34.5 points per game in the 1974-75 season) had seen his star dimmed by injuries as he bounced around the league, but when Mitch Kupchak blew out his knee early in the 1981 season, the Lakers swung a trade on Christmas Eve to acquire him from the Nets, for whom he'd only played 10 games the previous season.

McAdoo was still recovering from offseason surgery to remove bone spurs in his foot, but he was able to play 41 games in the regular season. He turned his game up in the playoffs, as he averaged over 16 points per game off the bench in helping L.A. beat the Philadelphia 76ers for the title.

Even on a team loaded with superstars like Magic, Kareem and Worthy, Pat Riley recognized how important McAdoo's contributions were, and he believes the Lakers could have defended their title against the Sixers in 1983 if McAdoo hadn't been playing through an injured hamstring. Said Riley, "If we could have had Mac healthy, we might have had a shot."

McAdoo played four years as a super sub in L.A., and he helped the Lakers beat the Celtics for another title in 1985, his final season with the team.

3. Lakers get Mychal Thompson from the San Antonio Spurs for Frank Brickowski, Peter Gudmundsson, one first-round pick, one second-round pick and cash (1987)

Perhaps drawing inspiration from the success of the McAdoo trade earlier in the decade, the Lakers again swung a deal for a backup big man to extend their championship window into the late '80s.

This time it was for Mychal Thompson (yes, the father of Klay), a versatile center that could shoot, defend, and most importantly, run on those fast-paced Showtime Lakers teams. The Los Angeles Times reported in the aftermath of the trade that the Lakers were so confident in their championship chances when they acquired Thompson that they asked the Spurs not only for his statistics (this was before we all had phones that could bring up Basketball Reference in two seconds flat), but for his ring size, as well.

Thompson helped the Lakers reach the Finals four out of his five years with the team, winnings rings in his first two seasons, and he then went on to become the team's radio announcer, a position he's held since 2003.

2. Lakers get Pau Gasol and a second-round pick from the Memphis Grizzlies for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittendon, Aaron McKie, Marc Gasol and two first-round picks (2008)

The Lakers were in shambles following the bitter Shaq-Kobe breakup that ended with "the Big Diesel" being traded to the Miami Heat in 2004. Even with Kobe still playing at an All-NBA level, L.A. failed to escape the first round of the playoffs in three years of post-Shaq play, but that all changed when they swung a mega-deal for Pau Gasol right before the 2008 trade deadline.

Others around the league, such as San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, were outraged at how little the Lakers gave up in the trade, and their fears proved to be well-founded, as the move instantly rocketed Phil Jackson's squad back to championship contender status.

Gasol was perfectly cast as the skilled but selfless wingman for Kobe, and an ideal fit in Jackson's triangle offense. The Lakers reached three straight Finals in Gasol's first three years with the team, losing the first year to the Kevin Garnett-led Celtics but winning the next two.

Gasol was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 2023 in large part for what he was able to do with those Lakers teams, and in his Hall of Fame speech, he credited Kobe with helping him become the best player he could be. Gasol deserves a ton of credit too, because without him, it's unlikely that the post-Shaq Kobe era would be looked at in the same way. ESPN's Brian Windhorst said it best: "Pau Gasol's arrival saved Kobe Bryant's last act as a Laker."

1. Lakers get the first overall pick in the 1982 draft and Butch Lee from the Cleveland Cavaliers for their 1980 first-round pick and Don Ford (1980)

Many Lakers fans would put the Pau Gasol trade at the top of this list, but although that move was absolutely an inflection point in Lakers history, there's a little bit of recency bias at play when it comes to comparing that trade to the one that ultimately resulted in James Worthy playing his entire 12-year, Hall-of-Fame career in Los Angeles.

Worthy was a foundational piece of the Showtime Lakers, but he never would have been able to come to Hollywood from Chapel Hill, North Carolina if it wasn't for L.A. managing to hornswoggle the No. 1 pick in the draft from a poor unsuspecting team for the second time in four years for a player that was well past his prime.

The Lakers actually made this trade in 1980, less than a year after drafting Magic Johnson, but the pick conveyed in 1982, right after Big Game James helped UNC win the first national championship of legendary coach Dean Smith's career.

Worthy made seven All-Star teams and averaged 17.6 points over his career, and he earned his nickname by raising his scoring to 21.1 points in 143 playoff games. His exceptional play helped the Lakers make seven Finals appearances, three of which they won. Those Lakers teams were beyond loaded with talent, but so were other teams like the Celtics and Sixers in those days. Even with Magic and Kareem, who knows how many titles L.A. would have won if it wasn't for Worthy playing such a prominent part.