I don't remember where I read this, but I heard the Lakers are showing interest in Jalen Rose. If they wanted him after he played for the Pacers in the Finals, I'd say Glen Rice for Jalen Rose? Why not? But now, I say, I'm all for LA trading to get a star, but NOT Jalen Rose. He costs WAY too much, and who would we trade for him? There's no way we should even think about trading Lamar, and I rather have Kwame than Jalen.
Kwame is more valuable to this team than Jalen would be, of course you'd rather have him. Kwame has stepped his game up in all areas outside of scoring in this triangle. His rebounding is up lately, his defense is improving greatly, and the Lakers are winning with the lineup they have right now. I think Jalen Rose would kill team chemistry. If the Lakers want a trade, it has to be for Artest, outside of that, I don't think their is a good trade out there for the Lakers.
I think there's a good trade out there for the Lakers, we just don't know about it yet. As intriguing as Rose is, he's not worth throwing away the teams financial future for. If we got Rose, that'd be it. We'd be stuck with that squad for another 2-3 years: I don't see Rose doing anything to bring us closer to a championship. Reports are the Lakers don't hold much hope in obtaining Ron Artest, because they can't find a third team to get in the mix. I say we risk team chemistry and trade Lamar Odom for Artest and I dunno who else, someone just to make the cap match.
One rumor going around is the Lakers/Pacers/Raptors might get involved in a 3-way deal. The Lakers would ship out Odom, and get back Artest & Rose in the deal. I'm not sure what other pieces are involved to make this work under the cap. Rose works into the 2007 cap plan, because his contract also expires the same time as Brian Grant's. Having Artest instead of Odom, saves the Lakers an additional $5.7M for the 2007 plan. PG - Rose SG - Kobe SF - Artest PF - Cook C - Mihm Odom had a decent game against the Heat today. However, when Bryant went to the bench and Odom became the #1 option, the Laker offense completely shutdown and Miami took a big lead late in the game. He also missed a crucial FT, and some WIDE OPEN three point looks down the stretch. Another critical mistake was stepping into the lane too, early on Shaq's FT, it lead to Shaq getting another try, which lead to the Heat getting an offensive rebound off the miss and then taking the lead back.
