{"id":139312,"date":"2025-08-12T09:27:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T09:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/139312\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T09:27:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T09:27:19","slug":"lakers-former-sharpshooter-officially-signs-contract-to-leave-nba-for-euroleague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/139312\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers&#8217; former sharpshooter officially signs contract to leave NBA for EuroLeague"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\/news\/lakers-sharpshooter-officially-signs-contract-leave-nba-euroleague\/9d33d4cc1cdbe07d95bf9e29?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=appeared_on\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Lakers&#039; former sharpshooter officially signs contract to leave NBA for EuroLeague;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Lakers&#8217; former sharpshooter officially signs contract to leave NBA for EuroLeague<\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=appeared_on\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Sporting News;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It had been reported that a deal was close, but now it&#8217;s official.<\/p>\n<p>Cole Swider is heading across the Atlantic to continue his basketball career in Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The former Los Angeles Lakers sharpshooter is heading to play for Anadolu Efes in Turkey. That team also competes in the EuroLeague, the second-best basketball league on the planet. They&#8217;re coached by former Suns head coach Igor Kokoshov.<\/p>\n<p>Swider posted about the move on Monday:<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORE:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/golden-state-warriors\/news\/retirement-warriors-al-horford-latest-update-context-big-decision\/2c0278d77f0baae931c04655\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Retirement or the Warriors? The latest on free agent Al Horford;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Retirement or the Warriors? The latest on free agent Al Horford<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Swider has played in the NBA for the Lakers, Heat, Pistons and Raptors.<\/p>\n<p>He began his college career at Villanova, then starred in his final NCAA season at Syracuse.<\/p>\n<p>From there, he went undrafted but signed a two-way contract with the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>At the NBA level, he has had a very small sample size of 3-point attempts and show 32.9% on those shots.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>But in the G League, Swider has been a deadeye marksman.<\/p>\n<p>In 2022-23, Swider shot 43.6% from 3-point range. In 2023-24, he was up at 50%. And in 2024-25, Swider shot 44.1% from beyond the arc in the G League.<\/p>\n<p>He lit it up in Summer League last month, too, but it wasn&#8217;t enough to earn him a contract with the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>Swider is 26 years old now, meaning if he has a big season in Europe, he still has time to come back and take another crack at the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>For now, he&#8217;ll try to help Anadolu Efes make noise in the high-powered EuroLeague. It&#8217;s a great challenge for Swider to prove his basketball abilities once again.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORE NBA NEWS:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lakers&#8217; former sharpshooter officially signs contract to leave NBA for EuroLeague originally appeared on The Sporting News It&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":139313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28878,83297,83299,83300,33427,83298,3141,1260,10008,62,67,132,68,7201],"class_list":{"0":"post-139312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-al-horford","9":"tag-anadolu-efes","10":"tag-basketball-career","11":"tag-basketball-league","12":"tag-cole-swider","13":"tag-euroleague","14":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-raptors","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115015086449497556","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}