The Lakers tried to sell Roy Hibbert to their fans as a suitable free-agent replacement for LaMarcus Aldridge, who signed instead with the Spurs.
Guess the Lakers were wrong. Again.
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Los Angeles is looking for a playoff team that is willing to trade for the 7-foot-2 enigma of a big man, according to a tweet from Basketball Insiders' Steve Kyler via lakersnation.com.
Roy Hibbert waived some of his trade kicker to land in LA... I was told Lakers trying to find him a playoff team. https://t.co/f0ulO2TqJB
— Steve Kyler (@stevekylerNBA) January 18, 2016
Los Angeles had hoped a change of scenery would benefit the former All-Star with the Pacers. Instead, he is averaging a career-low 6.6 points per game to go along with 5.8 rebounds and 1.7 blocks.
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Did we mention he's 7-foot-2?
In his heyday with the Pacers, Hibbert had back-to-back years of averaging more than 12 points, eight rebounds and two blocks per game in 2011-12 and 2012-13.
At 29 years old, Hibbert is almost a year and a half younger than Aldridge. But while Aldridge is averaging 16.1 points and 9.0 rebounds on a star-studded Spurs team ready to challenge the Warriors for the 2016 NBA title, Hibbert's only claim to fame this season is that he has started every game for Los Angeles. But its questionable whether he was worth the second-round draft pick the Lakers traded to Indiana to acquire the big man.
Los Angeles allows 106.0 points per game; only the Suns and Kings give up more per game, so Hibbert obviously has not made the impact Lakers management had hoped he would make.
"With the team limping along to the second-worst record in the league, it makes sense that general manager Mitch Kupchak would be looking to sell off veteran talent to playoff teams," Lakersnation.com reported. "Head coach Byron Scott has moved forward with plans to give more responsibilities to the young players, and if Los Angeles can get something of value for their proven veterans, that would be preferable to having them sit on the bench.
"... However, it's unclear whether there will be many franchises interested in the former (Georgetown) Hoya. ... Despite a solid start to the year, Hibbert has struggled recently, averaging just 5.1 rebounds and 5.1 points on 39 percent shooting in the month of January."
Hibbert's ineffectiveness is another blight on the record of Jim Buss, vice president of basketball operations who said he believed his team would turn a corner this season.
Unfortunately for the Lakers, that corner went further south.
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