FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:
The Los Angeles Lakers have been handed a golden opportunity to trade for veteran wing Andrew Wiggins. While some are hung up on the fact that he never became a superstar after being drafted at No. 1 overall in 2014, Wiggins has quietly become the exact type of player Los Angeles is missing.
By acquiring Wiggins and positioning him to continue to excel as an elite on-ball defender, the Lakers could make a leap to true contender status.
Wiggins joined the Miami Heat via the trade that sent Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors. Miami is overachieving in 2025-26, however, and is seemingly exploring its options for either a leap forward or a long-term push toward sustained improvement.
According to Jake Fischer of The Stein Line, the Heat are willing to move Wiggins if the ideal offer comes along before the 2026 NBA trade deadline.
“Sources insist, however, that Miami is indeed willing to part with Andrew Wiggins (and his $28.2 million salary) in the proverbial right deal.”
Trading for Wiggins would be challenging considering he’s owed $28,223,215 in 2025-26 and has a $30,169,644 player option for 2026-27. If the Heat are interested in a deal that centers around Rui Hachimura, Dalton Knecht, and draft compensation, however, the Lakers could make a vital upgrade along the wings.
With an elite on-ball defender in Wiggins, the Lakers could finally acquire the value they’re missing at the point of attack and make legitimate progress toward winning a title.
Trading for Andrew Wiggins would make Lakers legitimate contenders
Clearly, adding Wiggins wouldn’t necessarily give the Lakers a depth chart that can go player-for-player with the Thunder. Oklahoma City is unrivaled in its depth and capable of turning a game from competitive to lopsided in the blink of an eye.
The equalizer in any debate, however, is Luka Doncic—a player who helped knock the Thunder out of the playoffs as recently as 2024.
Much has changed since then, as Doncic has moved from Dallas to Los Angeles, and the Thunder have gained championship experience. Doncic has also been to the NBA Finals, however, and four-time NBA champion and Finals MVP LeBron James will always be a factor in a postseason setting.
The difference between who the Lakers are now and what they’d become with Wiggins is that they’d finally have the isolation defender they simply can’t find on their current roster.
Andrew Wiggins is an elite isolation defender and quality shooter
Los Angeles wouldn’t need Wiggins to be an All-Star, as he was in 2021-22, or to match his career-best average of 23.6 points per game. It simply needs a defender who excels at the point of attack while simultaneously offering enough value on offense to avoid becoming a net negative.
Wiggins checks those very boxes, particularly in the sense that he’s one of the best isolation defenders in the NBA.
Andrew Wiggins Perimeter Defense analytics
A+ Iso defender
Link to Player Profiles:https://t.co/y9CYZNxwTF pic.twitter.com/I84645eF2o
— BBall Index (@The_BBall_Index) October 18, 2025
With Wiggins in the fold, the Lakers would finally have the on-ball defender they need to round the rotation into form. The quality team defenders on the roster could settle into roles that fit them as Wiggins takes on the task of defending opposing teams’ best perimeter scorers.
Los Angeles can also derive confidence from the fact that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shot just 4-of-17 from the field against Wiggins in 2024-25.
It’s also worth noting that Wiggins has already played the type of role Los Angeles would ask him to on a championship team. He won a ring in 2022 with the Golden State Warriors by emphasizing defense above all else, and stepping up situationally in a supporting role on offense.
Compounded by the fact that he’s shooting 37.0 percent on catch-and-shoot threes in 2025-26, the Lakers should give serious consideration to trading for Wiggins if he’s indeed available.
From above article:
This was supposed to be a measuring stick game for the Lakers. A chance to see where they stand early in the season against the best team in the NBA, the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder. Instead, it turned into a sobering reality check, and another sign that the Lakers might not be as good as their surprising 8–4 record suggests.
This isn’t a new concern. I mentioned it in my 10-game check, and now the Lakers, despite sitting fifth in the West, are the only team in the top nine with a negative point differential.
This was a second big blowout loss on what’s turning into a disappointing road trip, one that exposed some structural roster flaws that even LeBron James’ return won’t fix against elite teams like OKC. And OKC truly is that, a juggernaut reaching historically good levels, a team currently a couple of tiers above the Lakers in both talent and cohesion.
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Today’s notes:
A frustrating but realistic comparison of where both teams are right now in the team-building process
Failing to respond to early Thunder force 📈
Too slow, two steps behind against fast-processing teams: defense
Too slow, two steps behind against fast-processing teams: offense
What’s next?
1-A frustrating but realistic comparison of where both teams are right now in the team-building process
The Lakers could and should play much better than they did last night. But this game, and that similar total collapse in Atlanta, showed they’re still a fragile team. One that lacks the cohesion and resilience to respond when things don’t go their way.
Twelve games into the season, the Lakers are still searching for chemistry, connectivity, and signals that could help them answer some long-term questions. This isn’t an unusual spot for a fairly new team that’s dealt with prolonged absences of all its key players while trying to integrate three offseason additions who rank second, third, and sixth in total minutes played. Early-season disappointments are part of the learning process, and as JJ Redick said after the game, they’re a reflection of where this group is right now, not what it strives to be later in the season.
The Thunder, on the other hand, are a fully connected group. Not only one of the most talented teams in the league, but also one with the most continuity. They picked up right where they left off last June. And if it’s any consolation for Lakers fans, they did the same kind of dismantling to the Warriors the previous night. The good news for the Lakers is that they stacked enough wins at the start of the season that there’s no need to panic when growing-pain lessons like this hit.
2-Failing to respond to early Thunder force 📈
Not starting at full speed or playing with enough physicality and force has been a recurring pattern for the Lakers this season. To their credit, in plenty of games they’ve managed to adjust and turn things around after soft starts.
That approach is a death sentence against the Thunder, because you’ll be down 20 points before you even realize it, and by then the game is already over. The Lakers opened the game with a couple of sloppy passes, or passes to players who weren’t decisive enough on their cuts, seals, or just claiming the ball on entry passes, which resulted in six first-quarter turnovers and 11 in the first half.
Turnovers have been another early-season problem that continues to hurt the Lakers. This was the fourth game of the season in which they turned the ball over on more than 20 percent of their possessions, and all four were losses.
Lakers turnover % by game
3-Too slow, two steps behind against fast-processing teams: defense
If you’ve been following my Lakers coverage over the last couple of months, you know I’ve been pretty consistent in my assessment that the team’s main weak spot is the lack of athleticism and speed.
In this game, the Lakers simply rolled over against the Thunder’s force and speed. But physical speed isn’t their only limitation. Teams that play fast and run more complex offenses often expose the Lakers as a step slow in their game processing.
There were several instances last night where the Lakers looked completely confused, staring at each other and pointing fingers. They gave up easy lobs on early empty-side pick-and-rolls with no weakside help, were late in their presentation coverage against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, didn’t know they were supposed to be in a zone after a timeout, and even botched simple switch situations.
You can fix a lot of these breakdowns through reps and better chemistry. However, the sample size of possessions showing that Deandre Ayton and Rui Hachimura aren’t a viable PF/C combination for building a disruptive defense keeps growing. I wrote about this in my 10-game check, and the two games since haven’t done anything to change that.
I think Rui and Ayton can be neutral defenders, even net positives in certain situations, but they’re not a pairing that can erase early communication mishaps (in fact, they’re often part of them) or provide the kind of backline disruption that even remotely resembles the havoc Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Cason Wallace, or Alex Caruso create for OKC.
4-Too slow, two steps behind against fast-processing teams: offense
The issue with game-processing speed isn’t only hurting the Lakers on defense. The Thunder’s elite defense serves as a playoff-like litmus test for how well certain players make decisions under pressure.
Source: Dave McMenamin post on X
Last night, the speed and execution after creating an advantage were, in JJ Redick’s words, “zero out of ten.” The Thunder showed two defenders or hedged on almost every Dončić pick-and-roll, and the Lakers’ decision-making in those situations was painfully slow, despite working on these exact scenarios in several previous shootarounds. Ayton and Hachimura are great finishers who flourish when the path to the basket is clear, but they struggle when the primary option is taken away and quick decisions are needed on the fly. LaRavia has been up and down — in this game, far too hesitant and indecisive. That’s not Smart’s problem; for him, it’s sometimes overconfidence that leads to wild passes and rushed shots.
To be fair to the role players, their two leaders, Dončić and Reaves, did nothing in this game to inspire confidence. Both had one of their worst shooting and decision-making performances of the season against the constant pressure of Wallace, Caruso, and others.
5-What’s next?
The Lakers have two games left on this five-game road trip, a back-to-back against the Pelicans and Bucks. They look like a team that’s hit its first wall, the energy drained after hustling their way to some important wins early in the season.
The key now is to survive this last stretch, because a much-needed break is coming, with only two games against the Jazz over the next nine days.
Source: NBA dot com
The other break the Lakers should catch during that stretch is the return of LeBron James, who has ramped up his recovery from a right leg sciatica injury by participating in his first 5-on-5 practice with the South Bay Lakers. According to reports, he looked and felt great, and getting one of the smartest players in the history of the game back should help the Lakers with their game-processing and problem-solving issues.