{"id":29889,"date":"2025-07-01T13:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T13:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/29889\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T13:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T13:01:09","slug":"the-lakers-are-once-again-at-the-center-of-the-nba-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/29889\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lakers are once again at the center of the NBA offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Athletic has live coverage of the\u00a02025 NBA free agency<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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\u2019s eyes to the West.<\/p>\n

And a lot of days, those people have a point.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Beginning with Sunday\u2019s 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 Don\u010di\u0107?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The noisiest stuff was all attached to James \u2014 the reaction from around the NBA to Rich Paul\u2019s 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\u2019 front office that his role in their team matters too (even if they\u2019ve clearly put their priorities behind Don\u010di\u0107).<\/p>\n

While some of that calmed on Monday with Paul telling Chris Haynes<\/a> that there\u2019s been no trade conversations and that James merely wants the Lakers to prioritize winning now while still being wise with their plans for Don\u010di\u0107 and the future, that kind of storyline just doesn\u2019t disappear.<\/p>\n

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 Don\u010di\u0107.<\/p>\n

Without Finney-Smith, the Lakers quickly pivoted to Jake LaRavia, the Sacramento Kings\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone can use a player like him,\u201d one Western Conference executive told The Athletic.<\/p>\n

Another executive praised LaRavia\u2019s toughness, his shooting and promising skills as a playmaker off the dribble.<\/p>\n

LaRavia is represented by Aaron Reilly and Reggie Berry, the same agency team that represents Reaves. Reaves made a surprise cameo<\/a> 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<\/p>\n

According to league sources, LaRavia was the Lakers\u2019 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\u2019 brand and Redick\u2019s detailed vision for how he\u2019d like to use the young wing.<\/p>\n

The Lakers were able to get a relatively quick commitment to a two-year guaranteed contract worth $12 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cHope Lakers fans are as excited as I am,\u201d LaRavia posted on Instagram. \u201cLet\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers\u2019 work is far from over. LaRavia could be championed as a good signing \u2026 provided the Lakers land their center.<\/p>\n

LA\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Ayton was clearly the team\u2019s top priority. He was picked first in the same draft as Don\u010di\u0107, shares an agency with Don\u010di\u0107 under Bill Duffy, who heads WME basketball, and is best equipped to give the Lakers the rolling lob threat Don\u010di\u0107 has thrived alongside. Signing Ayton is not without risk \u2013 The Athletic\u2019s Jason Quick detailed those in his piece on Ayton\u2019s time with the Blazers<\/a> \u2014 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 areway less talented certainly makes this seem worth it.<\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s competition. The Milwaukee Bucks, who lost Lopez to the Clippers in free agency, are trying to remain competitive and have access to the full mid-level exception after some cap creativity<\/a> and a need for a center \u2014 giving them the ability to offer roughly $6 million more than the Lakers.<\/p>\n

That means the Lakers remain in the middle of one of free agency\u2019s biggest storylines.<\/p>\n

And with a team that still has a sale to close, an extension to finalize with Don\u010di\u0107 and the handling of James\u2019 final chapters all still to come, they\u2019re probably not going anywhere.<\/p>\n

(Photo of Luka Doncic and LeBron James: Kiyoshi Mio \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletic has live coverage of the\u00a02025 NBA free agency.\u00a0 It\u2019s the complaint that they all have, the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3141,1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-29889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114778110937791520","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29889","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=29889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}