The Lakers will sign Marcus Smart to a two-year, $11 million deal after he clears waivers following his contract buyout with the Washington Wizards, a source confirmed to the Southern California News Group on Saturday afternoon.
Smart, the 2022 Defensive Player of the Year, will have a player option for the 2026-27 season in his contract with the Lakers, allowing him to potentially become a free agent next offseason.
The Lakers are expected to use all of their $5.1 million bi-annual exception on Smart’s salary for the 2025-26 season, a source told the SCNG, with the team needing to make multiple roster changes to have access to the full exception salary in addition to opening a roster spot for Smart.
Smart’s contract buyout agreement with the Wizards was first reported by ESPN on Saturday.
He’ll likely clear waivers early next week. His buyout wasn’t official as of Saturday afternoon. The Wizards, who are in the midst of a rebuild centered around developing younger players, entered Saturday with 21 players on the roster, the most the league allows teams to carry during the offseason.
Smart has averaged 10.6 points, 4.6 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals in 635 regular-season games (387 starts) since being the No. 6 pick in the 2014 draft.
He spent the first nine seasons of his career with the Boston Celtics, being named to the All-Defense first team three times (2018-19, ‘22).
Smart appeared in the playoffs every season he was with the Celtics, including five runs to the Eastern Conference finals (2017-18, ‘20 and ‘22-’23) and a run to the 2022 NBA Finals.
He’s averaged 12.8 points, 4.9 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.3 steals in 108 career playoff games.
Smart, 31, spent the past two seasons with the Memphis Grizzlies and the Wizards. He played in 20 games for the Grizzlies in 2023-24, missing significant time because of a sprained left ankle and injury to his right ring finger. Smart played 34 combined games for the Grizzlies and Wizards last season, missing time with a variety of injuries.
Although his defensive impact has taken a step back since his time in Boston, Smart remains a viable point-of-attack and wing defender. Smart guards 1-4 more frequently now than he did when he won defensive player of the year in 2022, making him a good fit in a switching defensive scheme while still being a strong defender against primary guard ball-handlers.
Point-of-attack and wing defense were the Lakers’ biggest needs after their moves from earlier in the offseason, which included signing center Deandre Ayton and wing Jake LaRavia and losing Dorian Finney-Smith to the Houston Rockets in free agency.
The Lakers, who have 15 players signed to standard deals on the roster, will need to open a roster spot to sign Smart. They will also need to shed at least $4.23 million in salary to sign Smart while staying under the $195.9 million first apron threshold, which the Lakers are hard-capped at.
Shake Milton is expected to be waived. Milton, who’s been in the NBA for seven seasons, has a $3 million salary for next season that was going to be guaranteed if he was on the roster past Sunday. Jordan Goodwin’s $2.3 million salary for 2025-26 is also partially guaranteed: $25,006 of his salary became guaranteed when the team picked up his team option in late June. The remainder of his salary doesn’t become fully guaranteed until Jan. 10, 2026.