As soon as the Los Angeles Lakers learned that Marcus Smart would be opting out of his player option this offseason, you have to believe they started looking around at the rest of the guard market.
In the end, Smart ended up leaving the Lake Show and signing with the Houston Rockets on a two-year, $13 million deal.
The Lakers didn't replace Smart with defensive pedigree at his level, but they did add Collin Sexton, who's arguably a better overall player than Smart at this point in their respective careers.
Did the Lakers consciously choose Collin Sexton over Marcus Smart in free agency?
NBA salary cap analyst Yossi Gozlan recently spoke about the Lakers' free agency and framed things with Sexton and Smart as a direction choice for LA between two guys for the room mid-level exception.
Sexton ended up signing with the Lakers on a two-year, $19 million deal that features a player option in year two. It's a contract that used the full room mid-level and effectively concluded the Lakers' free-agency spending, seeing as they'd previously used up cap space in the Walker Kessler sign-and-trade, as well as in deals for Quentin Grimes and Sandro Mamukelashvili.
Will the Lakers regret moving on from Marcus Smart?
There's no doubt that Smart had a bounce-back season last year and rehabilitated his value around the league. The former Defensive Player of the Year led the Lakers in plus-minus and started in 54 of the 62 games he played in. His defensive prowess, per usual, was turned up to an even higher level during the postseason.
Smart was tremendous against the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, averaging 14.7 points, 5.5 assists, and 2.7 steals while providing his vintage defense. It's not unlikely that Houston's front office had private conversations about planning to poach Smart from the Lakers after his Game 3 masterclass of 21 points, 10 assists, and five steals.
Smart's specific skill set and winning personality are sort of irreplaceable, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of better bench or fringe-starter-level guards out there. It also depends on what your team needs. The Lakers may have felt that Sexton's scoring, ball-handling, and youth (relative to Smart) were what they needed more than Smart's defense and experience.
Sexton's an underrated offensive player -- he shot 40.1 percent from 3 last year and averaged 15.4 points per game across multiple teams. You can basically plug Sexton onto any NBA team, and he'll provide instant offense. Gozlan described Sexton's contract as strong value for the Lakers. "I think Sexton's probably worth a little bit more [than his deal]," Gozlan said.
At present, it doesn't look like a boneheaded decision that LA moved on from Smart and effectively replaced him with Sexton. Their skill sets are different, as aforementioned, and we won't be able to judge the decision until at least a full season with Sexton on the Lakers is in the books.
That being said, if it becomes clear during the upcoming season that the Lakers don't have enough perimeter defense and it's leading to losses, plenty of fans will look back at moving on from Smart as a questionable decision.
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