Why would any team help the Lakers??
Hard core fans of Lebron James constantly think up trades that will improve his chances of winning a title. Been happening for years. Now fortunately the other teams don’t have gms that are Lebron fans so they don’t just do things like give irving away to them for free.
I don't think that's necessarily the motivation. The Lakers are one of the few teams that:
1. Have holes on their roster;
2. Have a large expiring contract;
3. Are desperate enough to include two future unprotected picks.
The targets we've been talking about are flawed assets. Nobody is suggesting that the Lakers are going to land Donovan Mitchell for an expiring plus two future unprotected #1s. But an injury-prone, pending free agent Turner? And a soon-to-be 30 year old Buddy Hield with one year left on his deal? Yeah, I think Indy would move those guys.
I'm curious, if the deal was Horford plus '27 and '29 first rounders for Turner and Hield, would you do it? (We'd have to include $5m in additional salary, so we'd probably have to package together some end of bench scrubs and wait a few months to trade them.)