Metta World Peace says the Lakers shouldn’t have traded future ‘superstar’ Brandon Ingram for DeMarcus Cousins

The Los Angeles Lakers were widely reported to be in talks to trade for Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins before he was ultimately dealt to the New Orleans Pelicans. The (reported) hangup? The Lakers didn’t want to include 2017 second-overall pick Brandon Ingram.

According to at least one member of the Lakers, that was the right call.

“Absolutely not. I like Brandon, and I think he’s going to be a superstar. I like who we have on the Lakers,” World Peace said on “Undisputed” when asked whether or not the Lakers should’ve included Ingram in a potential deal for Cousins. “We’re in a good position. We don’t need to chase anybody. We need to build what we have now and then get back to a championship level.”

World Peace went on to laud Ingram’s maturity, and say that that the Lakers would have finished with a better record had injuries not ravaged the team after their 10-10 start, but the real meat here is World Peace’s thoughts on Ingram.

Is it surprising that a team veteran would want to pump up a heralded, teenage rookie during a turbulent debut season? Not really, but this (along with the Lakers maybe possibly being the ones to leak that Ingram was untouchable in talks) can only help Ingram’s confidence as he hits the home stretch of his rookie year.

You can watch World Peace’s full comments below:

All stats per NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com. Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here, or listen to our latest episode on the Cousins trade below), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen.