Marcus Smart revived his value in 2025-26 through an overall impressive season that saw Smart looking like a legitimate starting-level, game-changing defender by the end of the regular season and into the playoffs.
Let's not forget that Smart, 32, is a former Defensive Player of the Year. And while he's no longer operating at that lofty capacity, Marcus turned plenty of heads this year and is expected to opt out of his $5.4 million player option this summer and seek a richer deal.
Marcus Smart's potential return to Lakers brings with it financial and basketball questions
Due to his imminent opt-out, Smart's return to the Lakers is in jeopardy. While LA would like to retain Smart for his enduring defensive value and underrated leadership, the Lakers have a ton of needs beyond Smart to address, without having the ideal amount of cap space.
Smart's financial outlook with the Lakers hinges a lot on where LeBron James ends up, as well as Rui Hachimura. If the Lakers were to bring back those two, they'd surely be an over-the-cap team, which would force LA to use the midlevel exception on Smart if it were interested in a reunion. On the other hand, if the Lakers stayed under the cap, re-signing Smart would mean absorbing his cap hit, which might land somewhere between $10 million and $15 million per season.
Those are mostly money-based considerations, but what about the basketball considerations attached to a Smart return? There are two distinct roles that Smart might occupy in re-joining the Lakers in 2026-27, with a world of difference between them.
Marcus Smart being a starter for the Lakers next season would mean that they haven't improved
NBA insider Sam Vecenie of The Athletic noted during a recent episode of his Game Theory podcast that Smart was playing like an NBA starter toward the end of the 2025-26 season, and, as suggested above in this article, that's an accurate assessment from Vecenie.
But Vecenie's co-host, Bryce Simon, pushed back on the notion of Smart being a Lakers starter in 2026-27, asserting that such an outcome would mean that LA hasn't markedly improved its depth chart. Simon was onto something here, and he said in another portion of the pod that he'd be fully down with retaining Smart as a bench player if he were the Lakers.
But therein lies the key distinction. If Smart is coming back to be a starter, and if the Lakers are okay with that because they've been convinced by Smart's rock-solid 2025-26 season, it represents a net loss for the Lakers. On the other hand, if LA can retain Smart in addition to acquiring a stud wing option for the starting lineup to play alongside LeBron, Luka Doncic, and Austin Reaves, then the Lakers would be in business.
Ultimately, Lakers fans are hoping that Smart's excellent season hasn't persuaded Rob Pelinka and the front office into thinking that LA is set with Smart as a starting-level player in 2026-27. That would be setting the bar far too low if this team's goal is to compete with the best teams in the Western Conference next year.
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