Keon Ellis #23 of the Sacramento Kings is a popular target at the NBA trade deadline, with the Lakers among the suitors.
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Keon Ellis #23 of the Sacramento Kings is a popular target at the NBA trade deadline, with the Lakers among the suitors.
For the Lakers, the NBA trade deadline is expected to be busy, to say the least. There will be conversations about whether the team is able to put together a package for a big-time star, whether the slim possibility of Austin Reaves getting moves grows and whether the even slimmer chance that LeBron James and the Lakers would agree to a trade (he has a no-trade clause) gains any real traction.
But in league circles, the expectation is still that the Lakers will do something modest at the trade deadline, and the name still on the team’s backburner–but possibly moving to the front–is 3-and-D wing Keon Ellis. He’s been a popular target for Lakers speculators, but the problem is, that he has been a popular target throughout the NBA’s trade season.
Here’s what one NBA exec told Heavy Sports a month ago: “At least half the league has asked about him. The Lakers tend to get talked about more, but everyone loves him.”
Lakers ‘Definitely’ in on Keon Ellis
Half the league, of course, means 15 teams. And on Tuesday, veteran NBA reporter Marc Stein wrote on his Substack that, “An estimated 14 teams have registered varying degrees of trade interest in Sacramento’s Keon Ellis.”
So we checked back in on the status of Ellis, and surely, the Lakers and GM Rob Pelinka are among the teams that have registered their interest in Ellis. However, the Kings are hoping to get a first-round pick for their popular wing, despite the fact that he has dealt with injuries and is averaging just 5.4 points on 38.9% shooting from the field.
“The Lakers are definitely in on him, as much as anybody. He is a plug-and-play in any rotation, not really a starter but a guy who is your first or second guy off the bench,” the exec said this week. “The Lakers need defensive players they could trust especially in a playoff situation, and he can go shut down a big scorer for eight or 10 minutes in a game.
“When you do these things at the trade deadline, you have your top priorities, but you kind of put a star on the players you want to come back to. They have a star on Keon. A lot of teams do.”
Rob Pelinka
GettyLakers General Manager Rob Pelinka in April 2025
Keon Ellis Worth a 1st-Round Pick?
Ellis is not the kind of player who gets dealt 10 days ahead of the trade deadline, and that’s why he is on the backburner for teams like the Lakers. They don’t want to give up assets now if a bigger deal wins up showing up next week.
The Lakers would be willing to swap out Dalton Knecht and second-round compensation for Ellis, but they only have one future first-round to give in a trade, and they’re not going to trade a first-rounder for Ellis. Whether any team actually would include a pick for Ellis is questionable–the Kings are simply hoping to parlay the demand for 3-and-D wings into an outsize offer.
If that means a first-round pick comes their way, great. But they surely know it will be something in the range of two second-rounders.
Lakers Could Take a $2.3 Million Gamble
That’s true of most teams. At $2.3 million, Ellis’s salary is cheap–there isn’t much complication to putting him into a trade. The Warriors have interest in Ellis, as do the Timberwolves, the Rockets, the Spurs, the Celtics, the Heat, the Suns, the Knicks, the Raptors, the Sixers … again, the Lakers will be bidding against about 14 or 15 teams.
But unless an offer of a first-round pick emerges, the Kings will wait until much closer to the deadline to make an Ellis deal, when it hopes other teams are desperate.