In the ESPN Summer Forecast for the 2019 offseason, the Los Angeles Lakers received the second-most votes to land Jimmy Butler.
After a very successful summer in 2018, the Los Angeles Lakers will once again be in a position to be big players in free agency next offseason. Unlike this summer, the Lakers will have a superstar already in place to help persuade free agents to join the Lakers.
In addition to having LeBron James, the Lakers, of course, have the city of Los Angeles in their back pocket as a good chip to use. Even though next summer is still a year away, ESPN recently released their summer forecast for where some of the top players may land.
The Lakers received the most votes to land Kawhi Leonard as expected, as not too many believe he will be staying with the Toronto Raptors. However, it was interesting to see the Lakers receive the second-most votes to land Jimmy Butler.
Like Leonard, Butler is an All-Star as well, and will be a free agent next offseason. Due to some drama in Minnesota, Butler’s time there might be coming to an end after next season. In the voting for where Butler lands, it was the Knicks coming in first, as there seems to be a belief that Butler, Kyrie Irving, and Kristaps Porzingis could team up in New York.
While the Lakers will certainly be pursuing Leonard first in free agency, Butler would be an intriguing backup plan. Butler is a very good two-way player that can defend multiples on the court, which is something the Lakers like.
However, one of the downsides to Butler is the amount of wear and tear he has. Even though he is still fairly young, Butler is frequently among the top players in minutes played per game. As a team that could be pushing toward a title soon, the Lakers certainly don’t want to handcuff themselves to a player that might have injury issues in the near future.
With the summer of 2019 still about a year away, we will have to wait and see where some of the big fish land next offseason. For the Lakers, they should certainly be in the running for another All-Star next summer.