Sports
Lakers Winners and Losers from 2023 NBA Free Agency – Bleacher Report
As more 2023 NBA offseason retrospectives are written, you can expect to see the Los Angeles Lakers making frequent appearances on leaguewide winners lists.
But who within the Purple and Gold stands out as a big winner individually? And, despite this being a successful summer for the Lakers, did any of their players actually emerge as an offseason loser?
Well, you may have guessed from this article’s headline there was, in fact, a loser within the L.A. ranks, but there were also a couple of obvious winners, too.
Let’s break down and explain the players selected on both sides of this coin.
If you merely track offseason wins and losses by dollars and cents, you might be fooled into thinking Austin Reaves wasn’t a summer winner. After all, the restricted free agent presumably had a chance to sign something much richer than the four-year, $53.8 million deal he inked to stay in L.A.
View this situation from a wide-angle lens, though, and it’s clear this offseason was a smashing success for the 6’5″ swingman.
Even in NBA terms, $53.8 million is an awful lot of coin. Reaves will not only collect this sum, but he’ll also get this money while chasing championships under the Hollywood spotlight with LeBron James (for next season, anyway) and Anthony Davis. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig, right?
Well, it gets even better, as the Lakers plan on “running more of their offense through Reaves next season,” per The Athletic’s Jovan Buha. By this past playoff run, the 25-year-old was already one of this offense’s key components, as he averaged 16.9 points and 4.6 assists in 16 postseason contests.
Maintaining anything remotely close to that workload would give him a chance to improve his numbers and raise his profile moving forward. And if Reaves does that, he can expect an even bigger pay raise the next time he reaches the open market.
Some will quibble with putting D’Angelo Russell in the loser spot. That’s fine. There are certainly worse ways to spend a summer than signing a two-year, $36 million deal to stay in Laker Land.
That said, this contract could be worth considerably less than what the 27-year-old thought he might collect on the open market. It’s a significant paycut from the four-year, $117 million deal he signed the last time he was a free agent (2019), and it highlights how leaguewide perceptions have changed about him.
Russell still puts up numbers (17.8 points, 6.2 assists last season), but they aren’t regarded as impactful as the ones he posted during his lone All-Star season in 2018-19. He’s a limited defender whose best skill is scoring at a high-ish volume with middling efficiency. That isn’t the most helpful skill set to have, a fact hammered home by the decreasing role he was given in the playoffs. After averaging 31.6 minutes in the first two rounds, his floor time was cut to just 23.5 minutes in the conference finals.
And there’s no guarantee he’ll reverse this trend. Gabe Vincent could challenge for his starting spot. When Russell does hit the hardwood, he could handle fewer touches given the aforementioned plan to task Reaves with more on-ball responsibilities.
Max Christie could even be a threat to Russell’s minutes if L.A. is comfortable with Reaves running point.
L.A. even worked an escape clause into Russell’s contract, getting him to waive his implied no-trade clause upon signing the deal. There’s a non-zero chance he winds up spending the majority of his deal with a team not named the Lakers.
While Rui Hachimura was immediately handed the workload one might expect for a No. 9 pick (2019), the Washington Wizards shaved that considerably following his first two seasons in the District.
Over his rookie and sophomore seasons, he averaged a combined 30.9 minutes per night. By his third and fourth seasons—the latter split between Washington and L.A.—he was down to just 22.9 minutes.
Hachimura appears poised to buck that trend with The Athletic’s Jovan Buha predicting he will receive “close to 30 minutes per night.” And that floor-time bump comes with a heft pay raise, too, as he signed a three-year, $51 million deal to stay in L.A. this summer.
While the Lakers are theoretically crowded up front—James, Davis, Jarred Vanderbilt, Taurean Prince and Jaxson Hayes will all factor in the rotation (never mind if L.A. adds another big)—that doesn’t appear to impact Hachimura.
The Lakers clearly believe in the strides the 25-year-old showed (on both ends) during the playoffs. They bet a big amount on him reprising that role more consistently.
Hachimura will have to make enough shots to stick with the starters (he’s a career 34.7 percent three-point shooter, but he hit 48.7 percent of his long-range looks in the postseason), but L.A. is invested to the point it’ll give him every opportunity to succeed. And even if he sinks instead of swims, his pay rate will still the same.
