bingewatches

The Los Angeles Lakers have clearly needed to shake things up, but the team has been wary of making any major swings on the trade market ever since their disastrous acquisition of Russell Westbrook a few years ago. Since then, they’ve mostly made moves on the margins and never got beyond the conversation phase for bigger trades (the most notable being discussions to acquire Dejounte Murray last season).

On Sunday, they finally took a bigger swing on the trade market, landing Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton from the Brooklyn Nets in a deal that will send D’Angelo Russell back to Brooklyn, along with Maxwell Lewis and three second round picks, per Shams Charania.

Adding Finney-Smith will give the Lakers some much-needed three-point shooting and another quality defender on the wing, as DFS is averaging 10.4 points on 43.5 percent shooting from deep this season for a Nets team where he is very out of place as a quality veteran. Milton likely won’t be high in the rotation in L.A., but will give JJ Redick another option off the bench in their guard rotation and is another quality shooter (38.9 percent from three this season). For the Nets, they bring in more draft assets and Russell, who is on an expiring contract and could end up being used in trade talks once again before the deadline. If not, they’ll open up more cap room next summer (DFS has a player option worth $15 million for next year) to allow themselves even more flexibility as they look to rebuild.

It certainly seems, on the surface, like a very solid deal for the Lakers, who get the 3-and-D wing they coveted without parting with a first round pick and managed to open up some more space between themselves and the apron in the deal, taking on ~$3.5 million less than they sent out to Brooklyn.