{"id":55911,"date":"2025-05-25T16:28:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T16:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/55911\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T16:28:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T16:28:06","slug":"mock-trade-gives-lakers-intriguing-young-center-from-the-pistons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/55911\/","title":{"rendered":"Mock trade gives Lakers intriguing young center from the Pistons"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> search for someone to be a legitimate starting-level center for them next season, they will likely turn over every stone in their attempts to land such a player. That means they may have to go for one or two under-the-radar options.<\/p>\n

One under-the-radar option who could work, at least to a certain extent, is Isaiah Stewart of the Detroit Pistons<\/a>. He’s undersized at 6-foot-8, but he does weigh 250 pounds and has shown the ability to work the boards well and block shots.<\/p>\n

JH Kubicek of Athlon Sports suggested a mock trade where the Lakers would give up rookie sharpshooter Dalton Knecht and 3-and-D forward Dorian Finney-Smith for Stewart.<\/p>\n

Via Athlon Sports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Stewart is a starting caliber center provided there is spacing around him, which the Lakers have in spades with [LeBron] James, [Luka] Doncic, and Austin Reaves,” Kubicek wrote. “With the Lakers, he could rebound, block shots, and catch lobs, all things he excels at despite being undersized.”<\/p>\n

Stewart averaged 6.0 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 19.9 minutes a game while shooting 55.9% from the field this season. Last season, he had shown some promise as a 3-point shooter by making 38.3% of his 3.8 attempts a game from downtown, but he was down to 32.1% on 0.7 attempts a contest from that distance this year.<\/p>\n

Of course, Lakers fans will likely remember the fight Stewart got into with James during the 2021-22 season. If the team is to acquire Stewart, he and the future Hall of Famer will have to resolve their differences.<\/p>\n

He may not be capable of being a true starting-caliber center on a championship-caliber team, but he could be one option further down on L.A.’s list.<\/p>\n

Of course, this mock trade would create a big hole for it at the wing spot. Since arriving in a late December trade, Finney-Smith brought toughness, defense and reliable 3-point shooting to the team, and he was the type of 3-and-D player it had lacked for the last few years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Los Angeles Lakers search for someone to be a legitimate starting-level center for them next season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[299,2096,1013,7,5954,1250,296,188,3860,1692,374,1693,947,1016,5955,300,298,150,6,62,67,61,81,297,3024,66,83,2614],"class_list":{"0":"post-55911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-angeles","9":"tag-austin","10":"tag-austin-reaves","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-dalton","13":"tag-dalton-knecht","14":"tag-detroit","15":"tag-detroit-pistons","16":"tag-detroitpistons","17":"tag-dorian","18":"tag-dorian-finney-smith","19":"tag-finney-smith","20":"tag-isaiah","21":"tag-isaiah-stewart","22":"tag-knecht","23":"tag-lakers","24":"tag-los","25":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","26":"tag-nba","27":"tag-neutral","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-overall","30":"tag-overall-neutral","31":"tag-pistons","32":"tag-reaves","33":"tag-sports","34":"tag-sports-news","35":"tag-stewart"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114569419615846925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}