Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
Addition by subtraction is a thing, and so is value cost.
Lonzo being on the court actively damages your halfcourt offense, so there's an extent to which moving him and giving his minutes to Kira, or Hill, would improve the on-court situation. We can dispute whether or not the loss in the fullcourt would counteract that, but it's a discussion to be had, at least.
As for value cost, you have to think: we have less than 3 months until the trade deadline, since despite the late start those dates are remaining standard. We have to make a decision between now and then whether we're willing to pay him what is fairly likely to be a good chunk of money: top 3 overall picks who have hype huge and followings get made offers, especially when they're still fairly young. I feel like the gap between what he has shown so far in his career and where he would need to be to justify that payment is so large that it's almost impossible to imagine him making it up: it would have to be equal to or potentially even larger than the leap Ingram took last year, and that itself was unlikely. So the ''long term'' thing you mention comes under threat: we don't have him ''long term'' as it currently stands, and the cost of keeping him ''long term'' is very likely to be far more than he's worth. Therefore, you circle back around to trying to move him now for some kind of asset.