Insider claims Lakers have had trade talks about three new targets
They can free up most of their bi-annual exception — $3.9 million, to be exact — to spend on at least one more free agent if they waive guard Shake Milton by July 20. There is also the remaining possibility of a trade, especially since they have the expiring contracts of Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent and Gabe Vincent to offer a team looking for some salary cap relief.
According to Anthony Irwin of ClutchPoints, L.A. has talked to teams about wing Matisse Thybulle, guard Marcus Smart and backcourt player Ayo Dosunmu.
"Sources say Matisse Thybulle, Marcus Smart (though most teams are watching to see if he's going to be bought out), Ayo Dosunmu and others are names the Lakers have had preliminary conversations with teams about availability and price, though no offers have been made," Irwin wrote.
Right now, the NBA's main summer league is taking place in Las Vegas. There are plenty of team executives there to watch their young players in action, which presents Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka with an opportunity to talk to other executives about potential deals.
'Rob (Pelinka) likes Vegas because he can just pull so-and-so aside and have a conversation that would otherwise take a little planning,' an Eastern Conference executive said. 'Summer league has become a real opportunity for all of us in that way.'
Thybulle is a 3-and-D player who is 28 years of age and could fill a big need for Los Angeles. This past season, as a member of the Portland Trail Blazers, he averaged 7.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.2 steals in 20.8 minutes a game and shot 47.7% from the field and a career-high 43.8% from 3-point range. He made the All-Defensive second team for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons.
Smart isn't a 3-point sniper — he has a career mark of 32.4% from that distance and made 34.8% of his 3-point attempts this past season — but he is a defensive pest. He has made the All-Defensive first team three times and was named the Defensive Player of the Year three years ago. The 31-year-old 6-foot-3 guard can also serve as a facilitator and has averaged 4.6 assists a game over his 10 NBA seasons.
Dosunmu, 25, is 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, and his 3-point shooting is a work in progress — he made 40.3% of his attempts from downtown during the 2023-24 season but fell to 32.8% this past season. But he's a solid defender and has shot 50.2% from the field in his four pro seasons.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Insider claims Lakers have had trade talks about three new targets
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Shohei Ohtani's two-run home run (34)
Shohei Ohtani hits a two-run home run to left field, his 34th of the season, extending the Dodgers' lead to 3-0 in the 3rd inning
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
JC Tretter resigns from NFL Players Association
First, Lloyd Howell. Now, JC Tretter. In a lengthy interview that was posted earlier this hour, Tretter tells Jonathan Jones of that Tretter is resigning from the NFL Players Association. The former union president had returned last year, as the NFLPA's chief strategy officer. "Over the last couple days, it has gotten very, very hard for my family," Tretter said. "And that's something I can't deal with. So, the short bullet points are: I have no interest in being [executive director]. I have no interest in being considered; I've let the executive committee know that. I'm also going to leave the NFLPA in the coming days because I don't have anything left to give the organization." But Tretter was a candidate to become the interim executive director. And Pablo Torre's reporting pointed to a broader strategy by Tretter to eventually succeed Lloyd Howell as the full-time, non-interim leader of the union. "I want to get my story out there, and I don't want it to look like this was sour grapes or I didn't get the job and I wanted the job," Tretter said. "All I want to do is tell my story and then go be with my family." He did indeed get his story out there. It comes off as a one-way effort from Tretter to provide his version on anything and everything, with little if any pointed questions or followup. "I'm not resigning because what I've been accused of is true," Tretter said. "I'm not resigning in disgrace. I'm resigning because this has gone too far for me and my family, and I've sucked it up for six weeks. And I felt like I've been kind of left in the wind taking shots for the best of the organization. . . . "I got to the point this morning where I woke up and I realized, like, I am going to keep dying on this fucking sword forever of, I'll never, ever be able to do what's best for me. And I will always pick what's best for the organization. And in the end, what's the organization done for me? Like, nothing. "I've been a bullet shield for six weeks for them where everything that's been controversial, it just all dumps down on me, and I've had nothing to fucking do with it. And that's when I was like, I'm done taking bullets for the [organization] on stuff I wasn't a part of and did not do." Or course, he did badmouth Russell Wilson after he failed to get a fully-guaranteed deal. (Tretter says he called Wilson a "fucking loser" in a text message to former NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith.) Also, Tretter suggested that disgruntled players should fake injuries, sparking a grievance the NFLPA lost in a slam-dunk ruling. So his hands aren't entirely clean. Even without the application of any elbow grease as to the various positions he took in his comments to CBS. Either way, now ends Tretter's time with the union. Since the NFLPA didn't previously have a chief strategy officer, it may not replace him. For now, the primary challenge becomes hiring an interim executive director.
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Guardians aren't interested in change after President Trump calls for them, Commanders to go back to old offensive nicknames
The Cleveland Guardians sound very good with their decision to rebrand, even after President Donald Trump randomly called for them to revert back to the old 'Indians' nickname on Sunday. Trump made a long post on Truth Social on Sunday calling for both the Guardians and the NFL's Washington Commanders to revert back to their old team names. He even threatened to block the Commanders' impending move back to D.C. and their new stadium if they failed to do so. While not mentioning Trump by name, Guardians president Chris Antonetti made it clear they aren't interested in moving backward on Sunday. 'I understand there are very different perspectives on the decision we made a few years ago, but it's a decision we made and we've gotten the opportunity to build the brand as the Guardians over the last four years and we're excited about the future that's in front of us,' he said, via The Athletic. The Commanders have not addressed Trump's post. The Guardians officially changed their team name ahead of the 2022 season, shortly after they stopped using the old 'Chief Wahoo' logo, which many saw as racist and offensive toward Native Americans. The Commanders retired their old 'Redskins' nickname in 2020. They went by the Washington Football Team briefly before landing on the Commanders. Their old nickname, which had been in use since 1933, was widely seen as an offensive slur and drew plenty of criticism in its final years of use. 'For obvious reasons,' Commanders owner Josh Harris said in August, that can't return. 'I think [Commanders] is now embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff,' he said earlier this year, via ESPN. 'So we're going with that.' Though it's unclear if the threat of blocking their stadium deal, real or not, will sway the Commanders, both Harris and Antonetti seem very content with their franchises' new names.
