Lakers Trade Rumors: Lakers were ‘prominent in talks’ with Celtics on Avery Bradley trade

The Los Angeles Lakers have focused almost all of their attention this offseason on trying to find additional depth and quality in their backcourt. The D’Angelo Russell trade helped the Lakers solve some of their issues at center, but left their guard rotation in a bad place.

That’s what makes the rumor that the Lakers were one of the teams that was “prominent in talks” with the Boston Celtics on trading for Avery Bradley pretty sensible, as Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported early Friday.

The Celtics have been combing through the trade market in recent weeks for a variety of reasons, most recently because they needed to clear salary cap space in order to outright sign Gordon Hayward. Boston ultimately decided a deal with the Detroit Pistons for Marcus Morris, and cutting approximately $3 million in cap space in 2017, was the move to make.

As rumors and reports have gone all summer for the Lakers, another one bites the dust. Bradley is an elite defender and would have been a massive upgrade for the group, but that dream bubble above the Lakers’ head has been popped yet again.

Next up is Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who the Lakers would be interested in signing to a one-year deal following the Pistons renouncing their rights to retain the defensive specialist.