Recent Lakers rumors have been about who they will be eyeing in the summer of 2019.
With the NBA offseason in somewhat of a quiet time now, recent Lakers rumors have been looking ahead to next summer.
The Lakers and Luol Deng recently reached an agreement on a buyout, as the team used the waive and stretch provisional to clear Deng’s contract. While this wasn’t the ideal scenario for the Lakers, they couldn’t afford to trade any of their young assets in order to get rid of Deng.
With Deng now off the books, the Lakers will be in a great position once again next summer. Due to the Lakers only giving out one-year deals to free agents this offseason, and the waiving of Deng, they will have enough cap space for another max contract.
While this summer had some stars like LeBron James, Paul George, and Chris Paul, next summer might be even better. Recently, Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne talked about a few of the names that the Lakers will be targeting.
"“The Lakers are targeting the top players in a potentially starry 2019 marketplace, including Toronto’s Kawhi Leonard, Golden State’s Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson and Minnesota’s Jimmy Butler:”."
Those are certainly some big names in the NBA that will be free agents this coming summer, and the Lakers will likely be favorites to land one of them. Kawhi Leonard has certainly been the most-talked-about player mentioned on the list, as his camp has stated his desire to play in Los Angeles.
In addition to Leonard, getting one of the stars from Golden State would be a huge addition for the Lakers. Not only would adding Durant or Thompson help the Lakers, but it would also hurt the Warriors, who the Lakers are chasing in the Western Conference.
There is still a lot of time before the summer of 2019, but the Lakers are already in position to add another superstar. With LeBron James and a talented young core, one of these big names will likely be coming to Los Angeles next July.