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It’s the complaint that they all have, the exhausted, the annoyed, the aggrieved. The NBA, no matter what the mass media says, is more than the Los Angeles Lakers. Every time a big-name player gets released, every time a big-name free agent hits the market, every time a star wants a trade, an army of purple-and-gold photoshops arrives with the talking heads to turn the league’s eyes to the West.
And a lot of days, those people have a point.
But here in the early moments of the NBA offseason, the Lakers have firmly established themselves as the main character, for better or worse, because of their glaring deficiency at center, because of the big decisions ahead and because their two superstars are at wildly different stages in their career.
Beginning with Sunday’s news that Dorian Finney-Smith was opting out of his deal, the Lakers found themselves as the main event in text messages bouncing between scouts, executives, agents and reporters. It cascaded from there into a flurry of rumor and speculation. Does LeBron James want a trade? Is Finney-Smith going to leave? Are the Lakers trading Austin Reaves for Walker Kessler? Are they the favorites for Brook Lopez? And, in one last exclamation point for the night, did Deandre Ayton just take a buyout from the Portland Trail Blazers to go play with Luka Dončić?
It was a real set of waves crashing in for 12 hours or so, and it continued into Monday, when the Lakers were one of the biggest stories, sometimes behind the story.
The noisiest stuff was attached to James — the reaction from around the NBA to Rich Paul’s statement ranging somewhere between a not-so-veiled threat to leave to an outright trade request to a not-so-subtle reminder to the Lakers’ front office that his role in their team matters too (even if they’ve clearly put their priorities behind Dončić).
While some of that calmed on Monday with Paul telling Chris Haynes that there’s been no trade conversations and that James merely wants the Lakers to prioritize winning now while still being wise with their plans for Dončić and the future, that kind of storyline just doesn’t disappear.
And losing Finney-Smith to the Houston Rockets came with its own set of issues. The Lakers, according to team sources, offered two years against the four-year, $53 million deal he got with Houston because they wanted to maintain as much future flexibility as possible to be in position to land a superstar down the line to pair with Dončić.
Without Finney-Smith, the Lakers quickly pivoted to Jake LaRavia, the Sacramento Kings’ free agent who had interest from multiple teams. The 6-foot-7, 42-percent 3-point shooting wing was an unrestricted free agent after the Memphis Grizzlies declined his fourth-year option last November.
In Memphis and, briefly in Sacramento, LaRavia flashed the kind of potential that some evaluators coveted at a low price tag this free-agent cycle.
“Everyone can use a player like him,” one Western Conference executive told The Athletic.
Another executive praised LaRavia’s toughness, his shooting and promising skills as a playmaker off the dribble.
LaRavia is represented by Aaron Reilly and Reggie Berry, the same agency team that represents Reaves. Reaves made a surprise cameo at the end of a long LaRavia interview this summer, when it turned out that the car LaRavia was riding in was being driven by his future Lakers teammate.
According to league sources, LaRavia was the Lakers’ first call when free agency officially opened at 3 p.m. Pacific Time on Monday. In his conversation with Rob Pelinka and Lakers coach JJ Redick, LaRavia and his team were impressed with the ways Pelinka sold the strengths of the Lakers’ brand and Redick’s detailed vision for how he’d like to use the young wing.
The Lakers were able to get a relatively quick commitment to a two-year guaranteed contract worth $12 million.
“Hope Lakers fans are as excited as I am,” LaRavia posted on Instagram. “Let’s work.”
The Lakers’ work is far from over. LaRavia could be championed as a good signing … provided the Lakers land their center.
LA’s target list, which began the day with Brook Lopez, Clint Capela and Ayton on it, quickly shrank to one by the early evening with Lopez agreeing to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and Capela heading to Houston via a sign-and-trade with the Atlanta Hawks.
Ayton was clearly the team’s top priority. He was picked first in the same draft as Dončić, shares an agency with Dončić under Bill Duffy, who heads WME basketball, and is best equipped to give the Lakers the rolling lob threat Dončić has thrived alongside. Signing Ayton is not without risk — The Athletic’s Jason Quick detailed those in his piece on Ayton’s time with the Blazers — but a return to high-stakes basketball at a critical juncture in his career combined with a point guard who can prop up centers who are way less talented certainly makes this seem worth it.
However, there’s competition. The Milwaukee Bucks, who lost Lopez to the Clippers in free agency, are trying to remain competitive and have access to the full midlevel exception after some cap creativity and a need for a center — giving them the ability to offer roughly $6 million more than the Lakers.
That means the Lakers remain in the middle of one of free agency’s biggest storylines.
And with a team that still has a sale to close, an extension to finalize with Dončić and the handling of James’ final chapters all still to come, they’re probably not going anywhere.
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