Podcast: Will the Lonzo Ball injury force the Lakers to be active at the NBA trade deadline?

Now that Lonzo Ball will miss four to six weeks with a sprained ankle, the Los Angeles Lakers have to decide whether they trust that he’ll make a full recovery within that timeframe, or if they might need to make a move just in case to address that concern, or any other across the roster.

And the NBA trade deadline was moved up from later in February in most seasons to February 7 this year, meaning the front office only has about two weeks to make these decisions.

On today’s episode of “Locked on Lakers,” listeners had their sights set on the trade deadline. I opened up the iTunes mailbag to answer questions, and almost half of them had to do with a move of some sort. More on this in a bit.

As I recorded before word dropped about the specific timeframe Ball would be out (I guessed he’d be out about a month), I reacted to how the Lakers might handle that. Fortunately, it seems like Rajon Rondo is close to coming back and LeBron James has made progress as well. If they are able to come back and stay healthy, the need for a move becomes a little less desperate.

Non-trade questions took us all over the place today, but one in particular stood out: A listener asked if I would go back in time and change anything about the D’Angelo Russell trade to shed Timofey Mozgov’s contract. The Lakers moving Brandon Ingram in that deal instead of Russell is one of the more intriguing what-ifs I’ve seen in quite some time.

Russell fits better than Ingram does alongside James given his shooting ability, though the Lakers would suffer defensively given what Ingram offers on that end. Just one man’s opinion, though.

Listen to the full discussion below and make sure you subscribe on iTunes so you don’t miss any episodes moving forward.

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