The Los Angeles Lakers may be getting ready to trade one of their better young players if rumors are to be believed. Anthony Irwin, a media member who covers the Los Angeles Lakers believes there are issues between Austin Reeves and Lakers head coach Darvin Ham, with Irwin going on to say;
"This possible thing between and Ham is… something. I’m here to tell you, I’ve heard it very clearly, that for whatever reason, Ham doesn’t mess with Austin the way that you would think he would. This might escalate all the way to where an agent gets involved or the front office gets involved and people start asking what is going into these decisions?"
The Lakers are struggling, only two wins ahead of the Jazz at the moment, and may be looking to do the very LeBron James thing; trade young players for aging veterans. It's something sports personality Bill Simmons thinks could happen, suggesting the Lakers trade Reeves to the Golden State Warriors for Draymond Green.
And if the Lakers are in fact open to trading Reeves, the Utah Jazz should absolutely be in on that discussion. Reeves is a fantastic finisher, with a good shooting touch and an ability to create for those around him. He's not an All-NBA caliber player (at least right now), but he'd be the perfect pick-and-pop partner for Lauri Markkanen. He can add some stability to the backcourt and give the Jazz a much-needed boost shooting the three-ball.
But that means his arrival would mean that someone would need to be placed on the bench. Reeves isn't a bad defender (-0.3 DBPM for his career), so you wouldn't be screwed having to play him next to Collin Sexton but you don't want to take Kris Dunn off the court either. He is 6'5, so he could play some small forward if that was the goal, and then you could bench either John Collins or Simone Fontecchio and have Reeves take over at the three position.
Then you could have a starting five of Dunn, Sexton, Reeves, Markkanen and either Kelly Olynyk or Walker Kessler depending on the goal for the night - though I think Kessler needs to be a starter again.