The Lakers now don’t have much money to give DeRozan, however, making him an unlikely option to return to his hometown and don the Purple and Gold unless he’s willing to take the mid-level exception.
It was recently reported that DeRozan talked with James about coming to the team before the Westbrook trade went down. With the loss of Kuzma, the Lakers really need a player that can defend bigger wings, which Gay would provide them. Gay is coming off a solid season with the San Antonio Spurs in which he averaged 11.4 points and 4.8 rebounds while shooting 38.1% from three. although would likely take up all or part of their mid-level exception. Gay is another intriguing option for L.A. James could probably convince his friend to take a minimum salary with the Lakers, which will be necessary with their lack of cap space. He shot 40.9% from 3-point range on 4.7 attempts per game with the Portland Trail Blazers last season. While 37 years of age, Anthony would still be able to bring a valuable skillset to the Lakers due to his shooting ability. With Westbrook now headed to Los Angeles, multiple league personnel contacted by B/R expect there to be significant interest from several veterans, including DeMar DeRozan, Rudy Gay and Carmelo Anthony, to forgo higher salary opportunities elsewhere and join the Lakers in pursuit of a championship.Īnthony is a close friend of LeBron James’ and has seemingly been linked to the Lakers every offseason so it comes as no surprise that’s the case again. Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report reported that DeMar DeRozan, Carmelo Anthony and Rudy Gay are veteran players that have interest in joining the Lakers: StatMuse recently uploaded a similar statement onto Twitter, as they do with most statistics related to the NBA.
And as consequence, the team has lost all of its last 3 games. Veterans may want to come to the Lakers in order to chase a ring though and they are already being linked to a couple. At the end of the day, not only has the team looked incohesive far too often, but Anthony Davis is also out with a gruesome knee injury. That means that Rob Pelinka will have his work cut out for him to put a quality roster together with limited resources at his disposal.