The Los Angeles Lakers should open the season with the forwards they already had rather than send a first-round pick to the LA Clippers for Derrick Jones Jr. That was this site’s position on Oct. 16, and it came with a number attached: “salary filler plus second-round picks” was the ceiling, and if the Clippers asked for a first, the Lakers should “let a contender pay it, open the season with the forwards they have, and see what the market looks like closer to the February trade deadline.”
The Lakers did exactly that. They are 4-1, no pick left the building, and Derrick Jones Jr. is still a Clipper. The price discipline survived. The roster math underneath it did not.
That piece held that the Walker Kessler and Quentin Grimes signings “settles four starting spots and leaves one open,” and named Jake LaRavia, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Jarred Vanderbilt as the three candidates for the last one. Grimes started none of the Lakers’ first four games. The forward spot went to Ziaire Williams, who was not on the list. Vanderbilt did not play a minute until the fifth game.
Ziaire Williams Took the Job the Trade Was Meant to Fill
Williams started the Lakers’ first four games and averaged 11.3 points and 3.0 rebounds in 28.5 minutes, shooting 57.1% from the field and 46.7% from 3-point range. He missed the Oct. 28 win at the Clippers with left foot soreness, and LaRavia started in his place while Grimes took the guard spot and scored 23.
That is a starting forward acquired for nothing, the strongest vindication the Oct. 16 argument could have asked for. It is also not the player that piece expected.
Jones Is Not the Marginal Upgrade the Argument Assumed
Across the Clippers’ first three games, Jones started every one and averaged 11.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 30.3 minutes, shooting 56.5% from the field and 53.8% from 3-point range, per Basketball-Reference. He held that line in the fourth: 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting, 3 of 5 from three, with five rebounds, four steals and two blocks in 28 minutes in the Clippers’ Oct. 28 loss at the Lakers.
In September this site called him an upgrade “in athleticism, not a solution to a gaping hole,” working from last season’s 10.1 points and 35.9% 3-point shooting.
Four games is noise, and this shooting will not hold. But the comparison still runs the wrong way for that framing: Jones is scoring about what Williams is scoring, on a better 3-point rate, with more than two extra rebounds a night. Basketball-Reference’s contract table has him owed $10,476,190 this season, fully guaranteed, with nothing beyond it.
February Is a Better Entry Point Than October Was
The Lakers’ one loss was a 136-129 defeat to the Portland Trail Blazers on Oct. 27, the night the defense gave way, and this site argued the next day that the roster fits Luka Dončić on offense only. The Clippers, meanwhile, are 1-3 and have lost both meetings with the Lakers, 125-117 and 103-87. A seller at 1-3 with an expiring rental asks for less in February than it asked for in October.
So the pass was right and the reasoning was wrong. The Lakers did not have one open spot patched by three in-house options; they had two, and more forward depth than anyone counted, which is why they could afford to wait. That argues for bidding lower in February, not for walking away. The first-round pick line should hold; everything below it is cheaper now.
Figures from Basketball-Reference contract and team pages and ESPN box scores. Jones’s September trade status reported by Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints; the Lakers’ interest by Dan Woike of The Athletic.
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