There were some minimum free agents that would have fit nicely on the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Los Angeles Lakers are gearing up to defend their NBA title from last season and the team looks quite different than it did last season. Gone from the Lakers is Rajon Rondo, Danny Green, Avery Bradley, Dwight Howard, JaVale McGee, J.R. Smith and Dion Waiters (although Smith and Waiters were merely depth pieces for the bubble).
There are plenty of new faces in LA as well. The Lakers brought in Dennis Schroder, Montrezl Harrell, Marc Gasol and Wesley Matthews to replace the players that the team lost this offseason.
All in all, it was an excellent offseason for Rob Pelinka and the Lakers. Pelinka pulled off the task of improving a title-winning team without adding another all-star to the mix. That can be really hard to do, especially in an offseason where they committed a lot of money to Anthony Davis and LeBron James.
He did it though and his effort should be applauded. However, there were some free agents that Pelinka missed out on that would have been solid fits on this roster.
This is not to say that Pelinka did a bad job as hindsight is always 20/20 on the roster. Heck, we don’t even know if the Lakers were in talks with these guys. Maybe Pelinka did try to sign some of these players but they decided to go elsewhere.
This team is just fine without these free agents, but it is fun to imagine their fit on the team (spoiler alert: they all fit well). Here are three free agents that signed for the minimum that would have been excellent fits in Los Angeles.