Los Angeles Lakers: Grading the 2020-21 offseason acquisitions
4. Wesley Matthews
Price: 1 year, $3.6mil, fully guaranteed.
I don’t have too much to say about this signing. At age 34, he’s entering the twilight years of his career. It’s also unlikely that he remains a Laker beyond this year.
Having said that, he’s cheap, he’s a career 38.1% three-point shooter, and he’s surprisingly still an elite defender, grading in the 97th percentile in Defensive PIPM last season.
You may be inclined to think that Matthews guarded the weaker offensive players while Giannis Antetokoumpo took on the toughest assignments, but in fact, these numbers were achieved while frequently guarding some of the league’s best players.
Per our @The_BBall_Index leaderboards tool:
— Cranjis McBasketball (@Tim_NBA) November 27, 2020
Only 4 players this year had a Matchup Difficulty in the top 10% of players, defended SFs for 25%+ of their time on defense, and had a top 25% defensive impact (via D-PIPM).
Ben Simmons
**Wesley Matthews**
Trevor Ariza
Isaac Bonga
I can see Wes being a valuable rotation piece for the Lakers next season and with a salary of only $3.6mil, his contract represents very solid value for money.
Grade: A-
Speaking of value for money…