The center position has been a revolving door for the Los Angeles Lakers over the last several years and there is no indication that it will be any different this summer. The purple and gold entered the season with two centers in Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan and slowly realized that Jordan was no longer valuable as an NBA rotation player.
Howard lasted the entire season with the team and while he is fine to have in a smaller role, he is a step slower than he used to be and you cannot fault the Lakers for wanting to go a different direction at the position.
Luckily for the Lakers, center is the easiest position to add to with a minimum contract and there are plenty of options on the open market for the team to pursue. None of these options are going to significantly raise the team’s ceiling, but if the Lakers can recapture what they had during the 2019-20 season then it would be great.
There are five free-agent centers that stand out for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Most of these options, including Howard, have very similar playing styles and offer the same kind of impact on the Lakers. It is up to Rob Pelinka and the rest of the front office to decipher which of these options would provide the biggest impact.
Let’s dive into the first option, who might be the most likely because of his ties to the Los Angeles Lakers.
1. Tristan Thompson
Tristan Thompson is already at the veteran-minimum point of his career and that makes him a very realistic target for the Los Angeles Lakers this offseason. Thompson’s connection to the team is really quite simple as he is a former LeBron James teammate and a current Klutch Sports client.
The Lakers can deny it all they want but it is clear that Klutch does have some influence over the decisions that the team is making in the offseason. After all, it was LeBron James and Anthony Davis who reportedly pushed Rob Pelinka to trade for Russell Westbrook.
If the Lakers are deciding between Thompson and any of the other four centers on this list then Klutch might end up pushing for their guy, getting him a contract to play alongside LeBron James and increase his value once more.
Prime Thompson is definitely past us but LeBron tends to make big men better and it is not crazy to expect there to be some kind of increase in play for Thompson from last season if he were to join the Lakers. Last season he averaged 6.0 points and 5.1 rebounds in 15.7 minutes per game.
The Lakers could absolutely get a solid eight and eight out of Thompson in 18 or so minutes per game if utilized properly.
2. Hassan Whiteside
Hassan Whiteside is exactly what the Lakers have been looking for at the center position over the last few years and it is surprising that he has not ended up in Los Angeles yet. When you are looking up the definition of a rim-protecting, rebounding big that is limited in other areas of the game then you will see a picture of Hassan Whiteside.
Whiteside really benefited from coming around before the analytics movement in the NBA really started to be a thing. While analytics always existed, if Whiteside would have debuted three years later he would not have gotten the massive contract from the Miami Heat that he did.
Now, despite being mostly the same player that is just a bit older, Whiteside is only worth the minimum and has bounced around from team to team on the league minimum. If he were to sign with the Lakers it would be his fourth team in four years.
In 17.9 minutes per game last season, Whiteside averaged 8.2 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game. He is the best shot-blocking presence on his list and while you cannot play him next to Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook because of floor spacing, there is a fun, bigger lineup where the Lakers could put Whiteside next to AD and create a wall at the rim.
Whiteside would mostly play when Davis is off the court but it would be interesting to see a LeBron-Davis-Whiteside and two three-point shooters lineup. This is similar to what the team did during the 2019-20 season and Whiteside is better than either of the centers the Lakers had that season.
Speaking of those centers…
3. JaVale McGee
In the long list of mistakes that Rob Pelinka has made at the center position, there is the JaVale McGee trade from the 2020 offseason. Needing to make room to sign Marc Gasol, the Lakers essentially traded McGee for nothing to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
That obviously did not work out as Gasol played really poorly in LA and would retire from the league altogether after the 2020-21 season. The team also brought in Montrezl Harrell (and eventually Andre Drummond) to replace Dwight Howard and that did not work either.
The team has already tried to recapture the magic of the 2020 team by re-signing Howard and perhaps they do the same thing one year later by re-signing JaVale McGee, who is currently looking for his fourth championship in the NBA.
McGee is making $5 million this season but it is extremely unlikely that he gets more than the league minimum as a free agent this offseason. He is still more than capable of being a quality producer as well as he has been exactly what the Suns needed off the bench.
Phoenix lacked a second big off the bench to bring in if Deandre Ayton got in foul trouble last season and McGee has been that presence this season. In the regular season, McGee averaged 9.2 points and 6.7 rebounds in only 15.8 minutes per game. In the playoffs, he is averaging 6.8 points and 3.8 rebounds in 10.6 minutes per game.
4. Dewayne Dedmon
Dewayne Dedmon is another center who has recently entered the league-minimum point of his career. Dedmon did get a decent payday from the Atlanta Hawks as he is now part of the rich veteran center market. Dedmon will turn 33 prior to next season, putting him in the exact same ballpark as all of these options.
The Lakers would have somewhat of an advantage in signing Dedmon if they ultimately were interested in bringing him in. As a minimum player, Dedmon will have his choice of teams offering the team money this offseason.
However, Dedmon is from Lancaster, which could make it an easy decision to come home and play for the Los Angeles Lakers. If so, Dedmon would offer more of the same as these other options with a bit more offensive versatility.
In 15.9 minutes per game, the seven-footer averaged 6.3 points and 5.8 rebounds. Those are standard numbers for the players that we are diving into. However, Dedmon has the ability to space the floor, which none of these other options have.
Dedmon is by no means a lights-out three-point shooter but he can hit an open three and can even provide some jump shooting in the mid-range. Heck, there was a two-year stretch with Atlanta where Dedmon averaged 2.8 threes attempted per game and shot 37.2% from beyond the arc.
5. Thomas Bryant
Thomas Bryant is the wild card of this list as it is hard to really pinpoint what his value might be this summer. There is a chance that the Lakers could sign him for the league minimum this summer but there is also the chance that another team offers slightly more, taking the Lakers out of the picture.
Bryant is much younger than any player on this list as he will be just 25 years old when the 2022-23 season begins. However, age does not always keep you from being a minimum signing. Just look at Malik Monk.
Bryant could take a similar path looking to prove himself on a big-market team to get better offers next offseason. Why would he even be worth the minimum, though? He has not been able to stay healthy. After getting a decent payday from the Washington Wizards, Bryant has played just 37 combined games the last two years.
That is a risk for the Lakers but as a minimum signing at the center position, the team can handle it. If the Lakers get the best version of Bryant they will get the best center they have had in the LeBron James era.
Bryant does have unfinished business with the Lakers as well. After being one of the best players in the G League with the South Bay Lakers, the Los Angeles Lakers decided to simply let him go for free. It was obviously a mistake then and Bryant proved that by becoming a quality rotational center in Washington.
Now it would come full circle if the Lakers were to get him back with other teams not believing in him just as the Lakers didn’t before.