Lakers Maybe Saved By The Wizards Who Keep Signing Players!

Lakers Maybe Saved By The Wizards Who Keep Signing Players!

What’s going on everyone? So, there’s been a lot of talk about the Washington Wizards and the Lakers basically keeping an eye on Washington and what they’re going to do. They had 17 players on their roster and the only guy that is on a non-G guaranteed is Justin Champagany who is the brother of Julian Champany on the San Antonio Spurs, but he’s a younger guy, right? He’s a guy that you’d imagine that they want to kind of keep around, let him grow, develop. Uh, so it’s kind of like, okay, we’ll keep an eye on some of the veteran guys. Now, the reason I say they had 17 guys on the roster is because they just signed somebody else. So, now they have 18 guys on the roster. You may have seen reports that they signed two guys, but uh the center they signed uh to a two-way contract. Uh they brought in Marvin Bagley III, which is unfortunate because now the Lakers can’t have the top three picks in the 2018 draft. Uh so, would it would have been nice you would had Aton uh Baggley and then Luca Don. That would have been kind of interesting, but the Washington Wizards brought Beagley back. So, um, he they now have 18 guys on the roster, uh, which is now another guy that they’re going to have to wave. And it wasn’t like some training camp deal or anything like that. No, it was an actual one-year uh, contract. So, you know, something to kind of keep an eye and monitor. Like the biggest name right now for the Washington as far as buyouts go is Marcus Smart. Um there’s some talks about maybe a Chris Middleton. Obviously they have CJ McCollum. Uh so couple options there. I mean they could literally wave all three guys or buy out all three guys, get off all three of those guys contracts and then they could go and and end up shopping to various vets. They’re not going to be able to trade those guys more likely than not just because of uh their contracts, right? Even Marcus Smart has like the smallest contract out of them and he’s, you know, 21 million. Um, now there are kind of talks about the Lakers maybe trading for Marcus Smart simply on the the fact that like Washington could kind of solve several issues, right? So like you could go to Washington and be like, “Hey, you’re going to buy out Marcus Smart instead of buying out Marcus Smart, right? Buy out, you know, Gabe Vincent and Maxi Clea or see if maybe you can flip those guys and, you know, get a second or something. Maybe there’s a a a team, a veteran team that’d be willing to give you a second for, you know, uh Gabe Vincent or Maxi, right? You take those two guys, see if you can go flip them. It’s easier to trade two 11 million guys than a $20 million guy, right? Cuz most teams, especially contending teams, don’t really have 20 million in salary to send out. Don’t really have 20 million salary to to trade and and pick up a guy like Marcus Smart. So, you’d have to find a team that needs Marcus Smart. you on top of that need to find a team that’s willing to pony up whatever it is to go get him player-wise and contractwise even if they’re willing to to make just like a swap players. But again, like it has to make sense for Washington. It’s like, yeah, I could just trade you Marcus Smart, but like what do we get out of it? But with the Lakers situation, it’s like, hey, take these two, three guys from us, right? Clear off some roster spots for us. Clear off some salary for us. waving, you know, buying out 20 million is buying out 20 million regardless. But would you rather just buy out Marcus Smart and we side him for nothing or would you rather trade him to us clear some roster spots and you get a, you know, a second round pick or a couple pick swaps or something? Even if the pick swaps would never become anything, it’s still better than nothing if you were just to wave him. And some people might be thinking like, why would the Lakers want to trade for a $20 million Marcus Smart? Again, it’s not just for the singular player, right? I’ve talked about it before. Don’t look at it through a keyhole. Take a step back. Look at the entire picture. You’re not just trading for Marcus Smart. You’re trading for Marcus Smart, still maintaining the flexibility of having $20 million in expiring contracts that you can maybe go pony up at the trade deadline or something like that. You also free up potentially two roster spots that now you can go sign, say, a Bradley Beal or if they end up waving a Chris Middleton or something like that, you can now go sign one if not both of those guys. And now you clear off the money in order to do that in the same breath. So you kind of solve everything all in one swoop, right? So it’s not just like again the keyhole of like, oh, you’re trading for Marcus Smart. Maybe you even kind of do a spit and a handshake thing where it’s like, you know, hey, wave Chris Middleton, too, and we’ll sign Middleton for that and do us a favor type thing. We’ll see. Um, but Washington, one way or another, they’re going to have to get off of some guys unless they’re doing a trade themselves, right? Maybe they’re kind of taking on a long-term contract, which is something they could do, right? They have several guys under expiring contracts. They could maybe go find a team that wants to get off like, “Hey, we have this guy that’s making 30 million that we want to get off of, right?” And it’s like, “Hey, give us a first. We can give you some expiring contracts.” Boom. And you kind of clear two of those guys off. So now you’re just waving Marcus Smart and being done because Marcus Smart, like I said, is the name that keeps popping up as the most likely. Now again, several of those guys on the Wizards make a ton of sense for Lakers. Marcus Smart I would love to have, right? I wouldn’t want to necessarily trade for his 20 million. And I don’t mean in the in the sense of what I just broke down. I’m talking about just like a a normal trade. Not talking about, you know, the all the other things that come with it. I wouldn’t want to necessarily trade for him. I wouldn’t want to necessarily trade for Chris Middleton or or anything like that. CJ McCollum I wouldn’t want regardless. I just don’t think that I think that’s kind of the last thing we need, right? Marcus Smart at least still is a pit pit bull. He’s still strong. He’s still physical. He’s still got the wingspan. He still could have an impact. Obviously, there’s injury concerns for guys like Marcus Mart, for guys like Chris Middleton. But again, if you’re getting them on a vet minimum contract, if you’re getting them on deals where, you know, these guys are essentially free and they’re also just rotation guys rather than key pieces. That’s the difference, right? bringing in Marcus Smart to be your starting point guard or two, it’s like it’s probably not best for a team anymore. But Marcus Smart being kind of that pit bull off the bench that you deploy and just have him be out there and and in key spots and key moments where it’s like, hey, we need a defensive stop or a defensive stance, right? Boom. Now you have that. Um, same thing with like a Chris Middleton. Yeah, Chris Middleton at this stage probably isn’t best in your starting unit anymore. He’s been dealing with injury issues and stuff, but him in your rotation off the bench. Although I wouldn’t I like if the Lakers could go get like an Andrew Wiggins or something like that, I don’t hate the idea of having like Middleton at the two or Wiggins at the two and Middleton at the three. Like kind of having those two just for the defense and switchability, right? But realistically, you’re probably bringing those guys in to again be rotation players off the bench that you’re looking to kind of plug in and play a role. and Washington. Like there’s several teams that may end up buying guys out. Like Chicago, for example, is a team that um you know, they may buy out Nicole Vousvich. They’re still kind of trying to shop and see if they can get off of him. Um but if they can’t, there’s talks about, hey, they might end up um you know, kind of letting him go uh so that way he can go to a contender or something like that. You know, that could be something like where Lakers could maybe land, you know, their backup center. They got the starting center off of Abio. Why not get the backup off of a bay, right? So, like that could be something to kind of keep an eye on. You never know some of these other teams and some of these like random teams that could end up, you know, like, oh, we’re just going to buy out this guy or wave this guy. Obviously, Bradley Beal is the big name on the market and everyone’s kind of just seeming to waiting around for Bradley Bule, which I think is really odd cuz like even that situation, it was like, you know, hey, we’re going to get a decision in 48 hours and that was like a week ago, right? Like a lot happens. It’s like, dude, like what is going on? It’ be nice to kind of know, right? Like, are you getting Bradley Beal? Because if you get Bradley Beal, you know, some people might look at it as like, oh, well, you don’t need Marcus Smart anymore. I disagree. I think you still want Marcus Smart. I think he’s a guy that you could you could have both. Yeah. Marcus Smart be your backup point guard, kind of defensive point of attack, and have Bradley Beal kind of be your your two guard off the bench. Just something to kind of keep in mind. But again, I I I want to see the Lakers continue to be aggressive. I want to see the Lakers start to be aggressive at least in the trade front, but in the buyout market, right? I want to see them kind of continue to be aggressive free agency in general, right? Like I talked about like DA Anthony Melton like why are you waiting around? Obviously, you got to do a consolidation trade and stuff like that, but like you know, if you can like go get those, go get him a Malcolm Brogden, whatever. Like, because what’s going to happen is Bradley Beal is going to get bought out and if Bradley Beal gets bought out, one of these teams are going to land him. Maybe it’s the Lakers, right? But whoever doesn’t, all of those other teams that are interested in Bradley Beal are all now going to pivot to guys like Marcus Smart, like the Anthony Melton, like uh Malcolm Brogden, right? Like they’re all going to be trying to go get those guys. So now you just have more competition. Now you’re just trying to convince them to come to you instead of them. Where it’s like right now everyone’s tied up with Bradley Beal. Come swoop in. Swoop in. Get a DA Anthony Melton. Go get a a Malcolm Brogden. You know, if Marcus Smart does become available, go get him, too. Right? Like Lakers need just perimeter. I mean, obviously I don’t want a team full of guards, but like you know, again, you’re probably trading Gabe Vincent at some point, right? And then if you end up landing say a Malcolm Brogden, right? He’s like 6’4, 6’5. He’s slot in at either guard position. He He plays big. He’s got the wingspan. He could slot in and play the three at the time. So, you could still have Marcus Smart, you know, a a Malcolm Brogden, a Bradley Beal. Like, I just I don’t want to see the Lakers wait around and end up missing out is my point, right? I don’t want to see the Lakers kind of, oh, let’s wait and see. Like, I’m all for being patient. Hey, preach patience a lot on this channel, right? But the patience has to pay off. And my my concern is like Bradley Beal goes to Milwaukee, let’s say, and then DeAnthony Melton goes to the Warriors and then Malcolm Brogden and Marcus Smart are the only two that are available left and you still have like five teams that are all trying to get them. And then what happens if Malcolm Brogden ends up going to, you know, a whatever a Pacers team or something like that? It’s just like, okay, well now there’s now we’re kind of down to Marcus Smart. What if Marcus Smart is like, I don’t want to be a Laker, right? like, you know, like it’s just those kind of things could be they could bite you in the butt potentially, right? But I I want to keep an eye on Washington. I Washington keeps adding players. Keep adding them, right? Because the more players they add, the more guys that they’re going to have to buy out. And they’re not going to buy out the young guys. They’re not going to buy out, you know, some of their young players. They’re going to buy out the veteran guys. Malcolm Brog or uh um Marcus Smart, there we go. and and a um you know Chris Middleton like those are the kind of guys that are going to end up getting bought out where the Lakers can kind of come in, swoop in and maybe land on one of those guys. But anyway, as always, this is a discussion. Pass question on you. Let me know your thoughts and opinions down in the comments. That being said, if you haven’t liked this video, hit that like button. Helps me a lot so you enjoy these types of videos and I truly appreciate it. Not scribe channel, hit that subscribe button, turn on the bell notifications. Appreciate y’all. I’ll see you in the next one. Thank you.

Lakers need help and the Washington Wizards might be the team to solve many of Lakers Nation needs. Lakers Trade could make an impact but also free agent and buyout signing which the Washington Wizards keep signing guys leading to more players needing to be bought out. Lakers News of another buyout guy would be huge.

#Lakers #lakerstrade #lakersnews