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Lakers Free Agency

A Busy Night: Well free agency has come and gone again and the Lakers were very busy.

Going in they had 5 players who needed to decide on their futures, three RFA’s in Jonathon Simmons, Josh Huestis and Troy Williams and two UFA’s in Manu Ginobili and Marresse Speights. 

Hamstrung: Management were hoping that Manu would come up early to get his huge $21M cap hold off the books.  But unfortunately the NLL Gods had different ideas with Manu holding out to 3^rd from last of some 120 players before making his decision.  This really hamstrung management eliminating them from bidding on many higher salary free agents.  Ironically, they now sit $9M+ with cap space.  “That’s just how the cookie crumbles, we made the most of our situation and now we move on,” said gm greenmig.

Goals Achieved: Despite this management was able to make some solid signings.  With the main goals being to retain Jonathon Simmons and sign a decent backup PG both achieved.  It turns out that Simmons did sign an offer sheet with Houston with Lakers management promptly matching it an hour later at no further cost.  This was considered a real boon as no more assets were needed to convince their prime target to return to the team.  Simmons who was signed on a 10-day deal some two seasons ago looks to finally be ready to play a significant role in LA this season.

Mack and Ersan: Second goal achieved when Shelvin Mack was landed right at the end of the night in a 2-up bid with the Jazz.  Mack deciding to join LA citing the fact he is more likely to get minutes as Brogdon’s primary backup as the main reason rather than being stuck on the Jazz’s stacked roster.

Another signee was Ersan Ilyasova, a longtime favourite of gm greenmig.  “Ersan has always been a guy we would like to have on our team, it was nice to pick him up early, he adds some nice versatility up front.” 

Bye Mo: The Lakers decided to cut ties with Mo Speights after the big man made it clear he did not want to stay.  Finally they were also able to retain Josh Huestis who looks to see some court time this season as well as Troy Williams who was sent to DEN as the final piece of the DWade trade.  They also signed 3^rd string PG Bobby Brown.

Manu Gone?: As mentioned earlier Manu did also decide to return albeit too late in the proceedings to really help the team cap wise.  Rumours are that a deal has already been struck which will see the NLL Legend leaving to join an eastern conference team in the near future.

More Deals Coming: So all in all a decent free agency for LA who now look to balance out their roster with some further trades with the primary focus being to acquire a C in return for one of the many PF/SF’s on the roster.

Stay tuned for more from LA.