NBA Trade Rumors: The Los Angeles Lakers May Soon Have No Other Option Than to Deal Julius Randle
Randle has expressed frustration over being given a reduced role
One of the problems when building through the draft is that all those young players will need playing time to develop eventually, and sometimes, there simply are not enough minutes to go around. Currently, this appears to be a problem the Los Angeles Lakers are dealing with, and it is already adversely affecting one of their players.
After starting the majority of the games during his second and third NBA seasons, the Lakers' young forward Julius Randle has been relegated to coming off the bench for the early part of this campaign.
The demotion is not sitting well with him.
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Following a recent game, Randle made it pretty clear during a brief interview session that he was not too happy about his reduced role, The Orange County Register reported.
Randle enjoyed a better outing most recently against the New Orleans Pelicans, but it was still clear that his new role had impacted his production and even his mindset in a negative way.
It is still possible that things will pick back up for Randle, and he will take to his bench role and emerge as a Sixth Man of the Year candidate as the season rolls on. At this point though, it seems more likely that he will continue to be displeased with the situation.
This is where things can get tricky for the Lakers.
Since Randle is set to become a restricted free agent at the end of the year, they can simply match any offer that comes his way from other teams and keep him if that is what they want to do.
However, if Randle is truly unhappy with his role, then he can sign the one-year qualifying offer and become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2019 who can join a team of his choosing.
Should Randle decide to take only the qualifying offer, there is then a pretty good chance that the Lakers will lose a talented young player without getting anything back.
The Lakers may have some high upside youngsters on the team aside from Randle, but they are not deep enough yet that they can just shrug off losing an asset for nothing.
So what should the Lakers do then?
One solution is to be proactive and instead of letting this Randle situation reach the summer, the Lakers can just look to trade him this season. Doing so may even make other teams willing to give up something significant for the former seventh overall pick in the NBA Draft.
Some fans and analysts say that the Lakers are giving up on Randle too early if they decide to trade him now, but there does not really seem to be any better time to make that move.
This Lakers-Randle situation is not going well so far for either side, and if the team just allows it go on, there is a chance that things may turn out poorly, especially for them.
The time for the Lakers to act may be now, and any delay can prove costly.
