Changes are expected for the Lakers.
And not just the change in ownership, with the Buss family last week agreeing last week to sell the majority ownership of the franchise to Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter and TWG Global at a valuation of approximately $10 billion.
But roster changes are also expected to be made soon.
In his last public comments with reporters, Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka, who also received a promotion to be the franchise’s president of basketball operations as part of a contract extension in mid-April, acknowledged on May 1 that a lot of work is needed after the Lakers’ season-ending loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves – the second consecutive season the team has been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.
And while the Lakers don’t have a first-round pick in the NBA draft that starts on Wednesday, the next week will help provide better glimpses of what opportunities they’ll have to make the roster improvements they’re seeking.
The first round of the draft is Wednesday (5 p.m. PT) with the second round on Thursday (also 5 p.m. PT).
The Lakers’ first-round pick in this year’s draft was sent to the New Orleans Pelicans during the 2019 offseason as part of the trade that brought Anthony Davis to Los Angeles. The Pelicans deferred the draft pick from last year to this year, with it eventually becoming the No. 22 pick, before sending it to the Atlanta Hawks in the trade that sent Dejounte Murray to New Orleans last June.
The Lakers do have a second-round pick (No. 55) in this year’s draft.
And unlike last year when the Lakers selected Bronny James, son of Lakers star LeBron James, with the No. 55 pick, there hasn’t been and won’t be as much attention or scrutiny on what the Lakers do toward the tail end of the draft.
Most second-round picks, especially late second-round picks, won’t make immediate impacts on their NBA teams – let alone ones looking to contend for an NBA championship like the Lakers. And there’s more uncertainty about what the Lakers will do with their second-round pick compared to last year.
But that doesn’t make Wednesday, or the draft as a whole, irrelevant for the Lakers.
The draft is a significant league-wide trading period – which is the likeliest path for the Lakers to make the roster improvements Pelinka has mentioned.
Although the Lakers have just eight players signed to guaranteed deals, with those salaries combining for around $118.1 million, they’ll likely operate as a luxury-tax team, if not a first-apron team, once decisions on player and team options are made.
LeBron James ($52.6 million) and Dorian Finney-Smith ($15.4 million) have player options for the 2025-26 season with deadlines of June 29. Jordan Goodwin also has a $2.3 million team option with a deadline of next week.
If all three of James, Finney-Smith and Goodwin return to the team as expected on similar salaries as their options, the Lakers will likely eclipse the luxury-tax threshold of $187.9 million and have just 11 players signed – three fewer than the league-mandated minimum.
The $5.7 million taxpayer midlevel exception would be their best resource when it comes to signing a player in this scenario, making a trade – or multiple deals – the most feasible way for roster upgrades to happen, especially for the starting-level center the Lakers need.
And the league hasn’t waited until the draft to make deals, evident by the transactions that have sent 15-time All-Star Kevin Durant to Houston, landed Desmond Bane in Orlando, swapped Jrue Holiday and Anfernee Simons from Boston and Portland and the four-player trade between New Orleans and Washington that sent Jordan Poole to the Pelicans and CJ McCollum to the Wizards.
More moves will surely be made between Wednesday and Thursday.
And for the Lakers, the next couple of days will provide further clarity on the options they’ll have on the trade market and once free agency officially begins on Monday (3 p.m. PT). At that point, teams can begin negotiating with free agents, but contracts cannot be officially signed until July 6th at 9:01 a.m. PT.