It's fairly well known that the Lakers are trying to move Gasol. They want to get younger, they want to get a top 10 pick and they want to free up some cap space to sign a free agent. So far they have had no luck finding a taker in large part due to his contract. Part of me doesn't want to help them at all because they are basically stuck right now. They have 0 cap room, 0 ability to sign anyone outside of the vet minimum and little hope of getting better. On the other hand...

#11, Wesley Matthews, Rights to Joel Freeland (may have to be signed first?) and #41 for Pau Gasol. Its not the best the Lakers could get but it certainly would provide more cap relief than the other options out there. They get a solid NBA player in Wes (albeit he plays the same position as the cap monster) they get a promising young player and two draft picks one of which is ALMOST a top 10 pick.

At #6 this would free us to pick up either Lillard or Dion Waiters. If we were to draft Waiters we would have to push for a veteran point guard like Kidd or Miller to hold the spot until either Nolan Smith develops or we take a younger point guard in a future draft. In a dream world we are able to get Mo Williams to spread the floor for the big guys. It's conceivable he would take a more reasonable contract if he was able to start again. If we take Lillard, we need to get a shooting guard that can hit the jumper to spread the floor as EWill is a slasher/scorer as opposed to a shooter. There are some out there in FA.

In this scenario, WE become the big twin tower team in the west, although I can't say how this would hamper our ability to sign Batum other than we would have to be very judicious with the other contracts on the team. I wish I had storyteller on speed dial. (for your younger folks, that's what we did with our phones before texting)

What say you my fellow ludicrous nitpickers? (before you claim outright the Lakers would never do this, which they may not, note that I have heard all the rumors here living in L.A. and frankly no one is offering them more than a mid round pick or a very good player with serious character concerns. Its getting dire over here.)