Bruce Brown is a name who the Los Angeles Lakers have been regularly attached to over the years. Like clockwork, the free agent found himself linked to the franchise once more in the summer of 2026. The circumstances for this one were the strangest of the bunch.
Jake Fischer reported earlier this summer that Brown was once again in play for the Lakers. Fischer arrived at that connection after discussing the notion of the former NBA champion joining a 'playoff caliber team' for this season. Right idea, wrong squad.
The New York Knicks announced a wave of new signings on Wednesday, including Brown. The 30-year-old veteran joined John Konchar, Drew Eubanks, James Wiseman, and Ochai Agbaji on Exhibit 9 deals with the defending champions. They will get a chance to compete in training camp for the Knicks' two open roster spots.
That right there also hints at why this latest round of Brown rumors never made sense for the Lakers. Their roster was full with guaranteed money and bodies. Los Angeles is still trying to get the team from 16 to 15 ahead of the coming season. To that end, adding Brown would have been a head-scratching move.
Bruce Brown joined a much more straightforward situation in New York
The Knicks have what the Lakers could not offer Brown this year: opportunity. The 2023 NBA champ can secure a gig, and perhaps even make his case for playing time with New York in 2026-27.
Los Angeles will have a handful of new arrivals who would have taken priority over Brown. It would have been difficult to imagine him slotting in anywhere with the Lakers beyond the end of the bench. Even then, that was unlikely due to the aforementioned roster crunch.
Brown delivered a productive season in 2025-26. The former Nuggets wing averaged 7.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 1.0 steal in 24.4 minutes per game, posting shooting splits of 48-39-76. After only playing 41 games in 2024-25, he also managed to appear in all 82 regular season games for Denver in this previous campaign.
There is value to having that type of player around. If not as a rotation piece, Brown is still a solid insurance policy to have for when injuries start piling up.
Despite that, Brown and the Lakers continue to elude each other when the opportunity for them to unite comes around. This time, that much is for the best with everyone involved.
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