Lakers’ playoff run has guaranteed the departure of this player

The Los Angeles Lakers have made it farther in the NBA Playoffs than any pundit thought they would go. Prior to the trade deadline, it was a popular opinion that the Lakers would miss the playoffs altogether just like the previous year.

Rob Pelinka then reinvented the roster with savvy deadline moves and the result was a Lakers team that climbed to the seventh seed in the Western Conference. At the time of writing this, Los Angeles is one game away from the Western Conference Finals with a 3-1 series lead over the Golden State Warriors.

The Lakers took a 3-1 lead thanks to fourth-quarter heroics from Lonnie Walker IV. Walker was not even part of the playoff rotation in the first round of the playoffs and has been inserted in by Darvin Ham. Walker has justified Ham’s decision with his strong play off the bench.

While it has been amazing to see Walker thrive in this way, for every player who gets minutes there is someone who loses minutes. That has happened to none other than Malik Beasley, who was one of the trade deadline acquisitions by the Lakers. Now, his future with the team is up in the air.

Lakers’ playoff run has guaranteed Malik Beasley’s departure this offseason.

It might seem like a bit of an exaggeration but just look how the Lakers have handled Beasley thus far in the playoffs. He went from being a penciled-in member of the rotation to not getting any minutes at all. And this is as someone who is meant to be a three-point marksman against a team that shoots threes better than anyone.

The problem is that Beasley has not been making his threes (dating back to the regular season) and he does not offer much else to the team. He is a below-average defender and doesn’t do much on the offensive end other than offer an off-ball shooter.

It is hard to justify keeping a one-dimensional player when he is not even doing the one dimension he is meant to do. Beasley is shooting 22.7% from three in the playoffs. That is why he is not playing.

If Beasley was a cheap player next season then it would be one thing but that is not the case. Beasley has a club option for the 2023-24 season that would pay him $16.5 million. Are the Lakers really going to pay someone more money in millions than minutes he will likely get off the bench? Probably not.

That being said, it is not a guarantee that the Lakers opt out of his contract. The team could opt into his final year and package him with Mo Bamba (who has a non-guaranteed contract next season) to obtain a player with a higher salary.

But that seems to be the only way that the Lakers will actually opt into the final year of Beasley’s contract: if the team just plans on shipping him somewhere else.