Los Angeles Lakers: Five free agent point guard options

4. Ron Baker

Ron Baker has been a fun NBA success story since he was first picked up by the New York Knicks back in the 2016-2017 season. With them, he became a reliable rotation player and earned himself a nice contract in the process.

Unfortunately, since his inaugural season, Baker has found himself on the outside looking in, as he regressed in his next two seasons with New York, was eventually waived by the team in 2018. He then was signed and quickly waived by his new team, the Washington Wizards. Baker is now playing overseas for CSKA Moscow, one of the more successful European basketball clubs.

Baker’s career stats are not that impressive if we’re being honest, at only 3.1 points, 1.4 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game. Aside from the meme value he provides, he doesn’t have much else in the way of reliable offense or defense.

Baker does have the ‘hustle’ factor, which is a bit of a contrived way to evaluate him, but it’s the reason why players like T.J. McConnell and Fred VanVleet have managed to carve a place for themselves in the league. Just to be clear, Baker is in no way even close to these two in terms of skill, and value-added to a team, but the example stands nonetheless.