The Los Angeles Lakers took a sizable step toward fielding a championship-caliber roster on Wednesday when center Deandre Ayton agreed to sign with them. He has his flaws, and there are reasons to be concerned about him, but his arrival should go a long way toward plugging their massive hole at the 5 spot.
The Lakers should have a very potent offensive squad with Ayton, who has career averages of 16.4 points and 10.5 rebounds a game and is a rim-running lob threat. But their defense is lacking throughout the roster, and as the old saying goes, defense is the key to winning championships.
There has been talk for at least a week that they have been angling to trade for Andrew Wiggins, a two-way wing who currently plays for the Miami Heat. Wiggins was an All-Star starter and won an NBA championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2022, and he could potentially make L.A. a title contender.
Unfortunately, beat writer Jovan Buha said on a recent episode of “Buha’s Block” that Miami is asking for a lot in return for Wiggins.
“I don’t know if Gabe [Vincent], Maxi [Kleber], Shake [Milton] and a first gets you Wiggins. I think they would want, I’ve reported/shared what I’ve heard, which is that they’ve been asking for the first and Dalton [Knecht], which I think is an overpay for Wiggins. And I think they also want Rui [Hachimura], too, because they want to remain competitive and obviously Rui is a better player than Gabe or Maxi. So I think the Miami asking price needs to drop, as I’ve said before.”
Hachimura, Knecht and a future first-round draft pick is definitely too much for Wiggins, who has made just one All-Star team and has two years left on his contract, one of which is a player option year. Obviously, if Miami wants to trade Wiggins and get something in return in order to rebuild after trading Jimmy Butler in February, it will have to lower its asking price, no matter who says yes to Wiggins.
Wiggins averaged 18.0 points a game and shot 37.4% from 3-point range this past season for both the Warriors and Heat. After 11 seasons in the league, he remains a plus defender, especially against perimeter players, while Hachimura struggles to guard perimeter players and Knecht is lacking overall on that end of the floor.