Kawhi Leonard taking his time to come to a decision — it was less than six days, remember LeBron’s “The Decision” was July 8, but free agency moved a lot faster this year — hurt the Lakers more than any other of the teams in the mix for Leonard.
The Lakers had two top-seven NBA stars in LeBron James and Anthony Davis, but now rather than add a third star the Lakers were scrambling early Saturday morning to round out their roster. A lot of the players they might have targeted — J.J. Redick, Trevor Ariza, Terrence Ross, even bringing back D’Angelo Russell, just to name a few — were off the table.
The Lakers moved fast to get Danny Green but paid a lot to get him at two-years, $30 million. Then they moved to bring back Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and JaVale McGee, reports Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.
The Lakers are expected to bring back Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on a two year, $16 million deal, per league sources.
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) July 6, 2019
JaVale McGee has agreed to return to the Lakers, where he’ll likely start at center, league sources tell ESPN. It’s a two-year, $8.2 million deal, with a player option.
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) July 6, 2019
Last season McGee started 62 games for the Lakers and averaged 12 points and 7.5 rebounds a game, with an efficient True Shooting percentage of 63.4. While Davis is far and away the best center on the Laker roster, he prefers to play as a four next to a more traditional five, which means McGee likely starts at center this season for the Lakers. (As a side note, this is where the Ivica Zubac trade last season hurts the Lakers even more.)
Caldwell-Pope averaged 11.4 points per game and shot 34.7 percent from three, plus he played solid defense. He was overpaid and certainly was brought in originally (two seasons ago) in part because he was a Rich Paul client (the agent of LeBron and Davis), but he has played solidly for them. This contract is at a reasonable rate, close to the league average.
The Lakers made decent moves to start rounding out their roster without Leonard, as much as could be expected with where the market stood on July 6. However, the fits are not going to be ideal at this point and it’s going to take adjusting throughout the season as well (both with trades and grabbing guys off waivers from other teams who fit).