The Los Angeles Lakers are reaching the finish line when it comes to building out the roster for the 2021-22 season. With the addition of Rajon Rondo, the Lakers’ roster currently stands at 13 players with 15 players allowed in total.
Every report this offseason has indicated that the Lakers have all intentions on leaving an open roster spot for a potential in-season move. This is not uncommon as anything can happen during the regular season, both for the Lakers and for other teams, and there is no way to truly gauge the team’s needs and the market six months from now.
That leaves one more likely signing and we may have already gotten hints on the direction the team might go. The Lakers opted against re-signing Jared Dudley, who was supposedly great for team chemistry, with the intent of adding younger talent.
Rajon Rondo obviously is not young, so that last free-agent signing is likely going to be youthful. We have touched on the recent lottery guards that are still on the free-agent market, but after the Rondo signing, those guards are unlikely.
Instead, there are three young free agents that stick out above their peers as possible targets for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Keep in mind: the options at this point in free agency are not the greatest, especially when it comes to young talent. There are still some decent veteran options on the market whereas the young talent market is not as deep.
However, that being said, there are still some intriguing options.
1. Garrison Mathews
Garrison Mathews is far and away the best young option for the Los Angeles Lakers to sign at this point in free agency. There was ta least a conversation to be had between him and Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk but with the latter signing with the Toronto Raptors, Mathews is the guy.
The intrigue with Mathews is his three-point shooting and the added shooting depth that he would add to the Lakers. While the backcourt is rather crowded, Mathews can play the three and still gives the Lakers a solid shooting wing.
There is nothing wrong with having even more shooting depth, especially with the volatility of some of the players on the Lakers roster. There will naturally be someone who disappoints and is not shooting as expecting and having another great shooter to counteract that regression is huge.
Mathews is 24 years old and has two years under his belt. He has played a combined 82 games and has a career three-point percentage of 38.9%. It is a small sample size, but it is still an entire season’s worth of shooting essentially that he was proficient in.
He is not a defensive stopper but he is also not a liability on the defensive end. With Frank Vogel, Mathews could definitely be a league-average defender at worst.
The only thing working against Mathews is the depth at the position he plays and the potential (not guarantee) that the Lakers may look to add to the frontcourt instead. If that is the case, there are two other young free agents who are not as polished but could have some potential.
2. T.J. Leaf
Do you ever have those non-lottery pick NBA players that come into the league, are not even on your favorite team, yet you are convinced that they are going to be a quality rotation player? T.J. Leaf is the perfect example of that for me and I still am not convinced that he can’t be a rotation player in the league.
Perhaps it is because he came out of UCLA at the same time as Lonzo Ball, who Laker fans were watching a lot of prior to the 2017 NBA Draft because he was likely going to LA. Regardless, Leaf seemingly has all the makings of being a stretch four in this league and just has not gotten the chance.
Leaf has never averaged more than nine minutes per game in a season and last season only played in seven games. His stock is certainly at an all-time low, but he is a recent lottery pick with potential that is still young.
Leaf is only 24 years old and on the right team with the right coaching, he can turn into the stretch four shooting option that he projected to be when he came into the league. We know the Lakers not only have an eye for late draft talent but have been fantastic in developing them. Perhaps Leaf could be another success story.
The Lakers have smaller options to play the four when Anthony Davis is resting or at the five but getting the six-ten Leaf and letting him test the waters in the regular season wouldn’t be a bad call. The Lakers will have a lot of blowout wins under their belt so Leaf should get a decent amount of playing time until he earns the trust of the coaching staff to see if he really can contribute.
3. Harry Giles
Harry Giles had high expectations when he entered college. He entered college as one of the best high school recruits in the nation and was actually the second-ranked recruit on the RCSI rankings. He was ahead of the likes of Lonzo Ball, Jayson Tatum and every great player to come from the 2017 NBA Draft.
It just has not panned out for Giles. He dealt with a knee injury in his lone year of college that tanked his draft stock, leading him to get picked 20th overall by Portland, who flipped him to Sacramento.
As we all know, the Kings are not necessarily the best team to go to for a young talent to develop and blossom and Giles never did. Not only that, but he had to deal with bad injury luck as well. He missed his entire rookie season, averaging 14 minutes per game in his second and third year in the league.
After just two years of actually playing the Kings decided they had enough with Giles, letting him walk and sign with the Portland Trail Blazers. He played in 38 games last season, averaging 9.2 minutes per game.
The potential is there with Giles. He started working on his jump shot as a pro and his physical traits are extremely impressive. He definitely is athletic and stands in at six-eleven with a seven-three wingspan.
He has a lot of potential to be a rim-running big that is athletic, can space the floor a bit and can provide rim protection. He is a solid rebounder despite his thin frame as well.
Is Giles going to come to LA and suddenly become who people thought he would be? No. But if there is any team in the league that can make the most out of Giles and develop him properly it is the Los Angeles Lakers.
He is only 23 years old. There are rookies this year (Chris Duarte) who are older. I know there is a stigma around Giles because he has disappointed but just pretend like this signing was a draft pick.