{"id":801127,"date":"2026-08-01T11:24:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T11:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/801127\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T11:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T11:24:23","slug":"lakers-insider-reveals-real-reason-deandre-ayton-was-traded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/801127\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers insider reveals real reason Deandre Ayton was traded"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 31, 2026, 6:30 p.m. PT<\/p>\n

Just days after acquiring center Walker Kessler in a sign-and-trade deal with the Utah Jazz<\/a>, the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> traded Deandre Ayton, their starting 5 last season, to the Washington Wizards<\/a> for two second-round draft picks and guard Jaden Hardy.<\/p>\n

While some understood the reasoning behind the trade, others felt it was ill-advised. To them, Ayton would’ve made an outstanding backup center behind Kessler, although Ayton has never averaged fewer than 27 minutes a game in eight NBA seasons and would’ve likely gotten no more than about 15 minutes a game on this new-look Lakers squad.<\/p>\n

Jovan Buha, who covers the team on his “Buha’s Block” podcast, revealed during a recent episode<\/a> an interesting reason why L.A. jettisoned Ayton, and according to him, it wasn’t just to recoup a bit of the draft capital it gave up to get Kessler.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy understanding with the Ayton situation is it\u2019s not just that they traded him to replenish the cupboard. I mean, they needed to save some money, and they got some assets back. So I think those were the two driving forces of that move. Remember, they needed to save some money to get under the cap to execute several of their moves. However, it wasn\u2019t just that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was also an element of Ayton and Luka [Doncic] sharing an agent, and they wanted to put Ayton in a position where he could continue to play and rehab his value. He\u2019s not going to be playing a ton. He\u2019s not going to be starting, but maybe AD (Anthony Davis) gets traded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe AD gets injured, and now suddenly he\u2019s in a more prominent role. So I think there are multiple wrinkles with the Kuminga situation. There are multiple wrinkles with the Ayton situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis, the former Lakers superstar big man, was sent to Washington by the Dallas Mavericks midway through last season. There have been rumors that he could get traded, but it doesn’t appear that Washington wants to give him up.<\/p>\n

Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n

Ayton averaged 12.5 points, 8.3 shot attempts and eight rebounds a game last season, all of which were career lows. He had to adjust to playing a diminished role offensively as L.A.’s fourth option, and keeping him as a backup would’ve resulted in a chance that he would’ve become a malcontent.<\/p>\n

He decided to exercise the player option on his contract for the 2026-27 campaign last month. Ayton signed a two-year, $16.6 million deal with the Lakers last summer after his previous contract was bought out by the Portland Trail Blazers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 31, 2026, 6:30 p.m. PT Just days after acquiring center Walker Kessler in a sign-and-trade deal with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[72400,7,6,90545,53093,72522,72404,72934,73765,74587,74985,72689,72444,72422,72666,72406,72465,72600,72428,72403,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":["post-801127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-wizards","tag-accessfree","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sourcelebron-wire","tag-sstssportsnba","tag-sstsnnba","tag-tagbasketball","tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","tag-tagcgr-sports","tag-tagdeandre-ayton","tag-tagjaden-hardy","tag-taglos-angeles-lakers","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnba","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagutah-jazz","tag-tagwalker-kessler","tag-tagwashington-wizards","tag-typestory","tag-washington","tag-washington-wizards","tag-washingtonwizards","tag-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117020004430874801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801127","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=801127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}