Los Angeles Lakers: Realistic tier 4 free agents to target

As the Los Angeles Lakers sputter to a disappointing finish to the 2018-2019 season, the franchise will now have to look to 2019 class of free agents to re-tool and improve the roster.

With around $36 million in cap space to work with, the Los Angeles Lakers can go in a number of different directions to improve the roster, whether it’s signing a max-level player, several role players to improve the depth, or making a blockbuster trade to acquire a superstar.

For the purposes of this series of articles, I’ve split the 2019 free agency class into four tiers of players, taking into account factors such as expected contract, skill-level and standing in the league.

Tier 4 will encompass mostly bench players. Tier 3 will feature solid starters. Tier 2 will have fringe star players and Tier 1 is the bonafide star-level talent that the Lakers have been so desperately trying to acquire.

This article is going to focus on Tier 4, and we’ll be moving up the Tiers as we get closer to the start of free agency. The list is also subject to change as the Lakers front-office and coaching situation becomes more stable.

As a short primer, free-agents in the Tier 4 category are not necessarily the ‘bottom of the barrel’, but have a ceiling that is pretty much capped out as being solid bench players. The upside is that with the amount of cap-space the Lakers will have, they can sign up to 3-4 of these players and improve their depth. With that in mind, let’s get into the list.