I put out the call on social media for questions as we formally enter the exciting parts of the Lakers’ offseason, first with the NBA Draft and then with free agency.Kudos, you all really delivered.It’s a fascinating time for the organization, the first summer with new ownership’s fingerprints fully on it at a time when the Lakers have huge decisions to make about LeBron James, Austin Reaves and the best ways to build out a title contender around Luka Dončić.(Note: Questions have been lightly edited for clarity.)Let’s get after it with the most pressing question first.
A lot of people asking about how the Lakers are doing, but what I’m curious about is: how are YOU doing? 🙂
— LakersEgg89 (@Egg89Lakers) June 15, 2026I’m tired, tanning mostly from the light of a laptop screen, and my wife thinks she’s spotting my first grey hairs. It’s not even July. OK, enough about me.Richard Staple, BSN, RN asks: Is there a feasible path of the Lakers bringing back Reaves, Bron, Rui (Hachimura), (Jaxson) Hayes and (Marcus) Smart while markedly improving the team to contender status?This, to me, this is the question about the Lakers’ roster heading into this summer. There’s a bit of a mandate for change, the Lakers having pitched Dončić as the summer of 2026 as the team’s real chance to build him the roster that gives him the best chance to win championships.On one hand, bringing back five or more of your own free agents doesn’t really satisfy those desires. On the other, the Lakers are coming off a year when they won 53 games (their second-best season since 2010-11) and didn’t get a shot in the playoffs with a healthy roster.If you’re signing all these players (or maybe swapping in Luke Kennard or even Deandre Ayton) to new deals, you’re likely just going to be a team that’s operating over the salary cap and will have the mid-level exception and trades that match salaries as pathways to get better. It’s not impossible, but adding two starters with limited assets and an exception might be a tall order.If you’re letting people walk, you’ve got to replace them. Good on no Marcus Smart? Better have a point-of-attack defender in line. Say goodbye to Hachimura and Kennard? Gonna need to find some shooters. No Hayes? Who is going to be the rim-runner then?Don’t want to pay Reaves what he’s worth? You need to find a high-level secondary playmaker off Dončić. And James? How do you replace LeBron James?What will LeBron do?Dave DuFour and Zenab KeitaLet’s do some imaginary math with made up salary numbers. If the Lakers renounce all their free agents except for Reaves, hacking their books with machete, the team would have Dončić, Jared Vanderbilt, Jake LaRavia, Dalton Knecht, Bronny James (partial guarantee) and Adou Theiro under contract. Let’s also account for the Lakers’ first-round pick. That leaves the Lakers with a little more than $58 million and the room exception, which is worth approximately $9.4 million.They would then need the following: a starting guard, two starting forwards, a starting center, a back-up point guard, a back-up center and wing depth. If James gets $25 million, Hachimura gets $17 million and Smart gets the room exception, the Lakers are at $19.5 million-ish or so in space. (They’d get back the incomplete roster charges.)(Again, these are just made up numbers for a thought exercise, so cool it, NBACentral.)If you’re bringing back a big chunk of your players from last year, the only real way to make changes is through a trade, and that’s always a tricky gambit because teams can’t control what potential trade partners will and won’t do.Is that enough to make the kinds of changes you’d need to push the roster in a more Dončić-centric direction? Do you get the center and the wing depth you need with this formula?OldSkoolNewSchoolLakers asks: What do you think the odds are the Lakers run it back for the most part?Low. I think the Lakers are under pressure to make changes, so that means some tough decisions.TyBuckets29 asks: In your opinion, do you think Jarred Vanderbilt, Dalton and first-round draft capital could land a substantial or at least reliable rotation piece?When I talk to people around the NBA about the current players on the Lakers’ roster, there just isn’t a real clamoring from teams to go and get one of them. They all have real flaws that might knock them out of a team’s plans. Maybe — and it’s a maybe — there’s a team desperate for shooting that would try and look at Knecht, but I don’t think there’s a big market for him.A specific team needing defensive versatility and rebounding with offense to spare could find use for Vanderbilt, but his $13.3 million player option for the 2027-28 season seems like a lock to be picked up, making his contract a rough one for a team to take. Basically, in a vacuum, you’d be paying teams something in terms of capital (either players or picks) to grab that contract. To get back an established player on a good contract, you’d have to meet the asking price and whatever the cost is to get off of the players you’re sending out. I do think that if, the Lakers were creative about some of the “bad” contracts that exist around the league, they could search for players who fit their specific needs and situation and try to find value that way.As teams look to shed cash to get under aprons and tax lines, the Lakers can use their space either to get players who can help or to take on contracts of players who they could maybe find value in while grabbing an asset or two in the process.GOATMODE69 asks: Lakers getting close on an assistant GM?This has been a surprise around NBA circles, but the team has yet to fill the assistant general manager role they sought to handle player evaluation and development. The team was unable to land Minnesota executive Steve Senior or Philadelphia exec Prosper Karangwa.They’ve been conducting interviews since before the end of the playoffs and still haven’t landed a candidate they want who wants to come to Los Angeles. The changes we know — Tony Bennett as a draft consultant and Rohan Ramadas as their assistant gm of strategy and data systems — plus the involvement of Andrew Friedman, Farhan Zaidi and Lon Rosen mean there are some new voices in the team’s huddles. Kurt Rambis, who has relationships with both the older regime and the newer one, is also still involved, per league sources granted anonymity to discuss the Lakers freely.MarinaDome28: Who is the Lakers’ future center?Great question. I don’t think they know. Walker Kessler is someone they’ve targeted in the past, and the door could be slightly open for a sign-and-trade that would make Utah uncomfortable with the financial commitment to their frontcourt. But I just don’t think the Jazz want to deal him — they’ve had chances.Does Yves Missi have the right set of skills to completely thrive in a Dončić system? It seems like it. Can he do it in high-leverage moments as Daniel Gafford and Derrick Lively II did in Dallas? Very “to be determined.” I’m skeptical that Cleveland, in an effort to ease financial problems, would rid itself of its starting center in Jarrett Allen without having a great line on a different starting center. I also think Mitchell Robinson and Isaiah Hartenstein are far more likely to return to their teams than to enter free agency. (If Hartenstein were gettable, it’d almost certainly have to be via trade after the Thunder exercise their team option, the Lakers then arming Oklahoma City with more draft capital.)Robert Williams III is an option, though Portland, according to league sources, is expected to show interest in re-signing him after he played 59 games last season — second-most in his injury-hampered career.It’s a bit of bad luck for the Lakers to be looking for a rim-running, rim-protecting center at a time when there aren’t many of them in the league — not to mention ones that are available.BCORREAQ asks: Will Marcus Smart be a priority to bring back to the team along with Ayton?I’m glad we have these two together in the same question because I think, at least in spirit, the answer is similar. If we’re being completely objective, both Smart and Ayton out-performed their contracts last season in a number of different ways. Getting what turned out to be two starters via buyouts was a godsend for the team as they bridged from whatever they were before the Dončić trade to whatever they’re going to be next. But, to be clear, it was a bridge.That’s not to say neither will be back (both have player options), but team sources have repeatedly talked about an upgrade at the center position. They’ve also spoken about a desire to get younger and more athletic. If I had to pick one to be back, I’d lean Smart. I just think the Lakers want a more traditional Dončić-style center.lakerxdx asks: Hi Dan, have there been any conversations about adding to or changing the coaching staff this offseason? At last check, the coaching staff is set to return with Ty Abott coaching for the Lakers in summer league.tommyswings asks: Rohan Ramadas has experience with data-driven player evals for the draft. Is he involved in the draft process at all for 2026? If so, how much influence does he have, and how much of an impact could he really make with only one month between his hire date and draft day?I’m not going to pretend to know exactly what’s happening in the Lakers’ draft meetings, but early word on Ramadas is that he’s been impressive. I will say, in a general sense, that people around the NBA have their intel reports and their models that they’ve been working on for years, so it’s not like this draft is completely a mystery to any new hires. As far as his influence, I’d say “TBD,” but I think the new ownership group has desires for a collaborative process for the Lakers’ decision-making.I’ll also use this question to talk a little bit about pick No. 25. In a general sense, teams shouldn’t be expecting to land starters when they pick this late in the first round. A successful pick would be a top-eight rotational player — something the Lakers really need out of a young player. Based on the way the draft boards have looked, it seems as if the Lakers will be looking at either bigs or larger wings here. If I had to bet on characteristic: high-motor.Dami_lare03 asks: If you could overpay for one restricted free agent between Peyton Watson and Kessler, who would it be?I don’t think restricted free agency ever works, but if I had to overpay someone, it’d be Jalen Duren.paydawg2 asks: Do you sense most teams are hesitant to be a trade partner with the Lakers because of various reasons (i.e. Lakers jealousy, hatred for Rob Pelinka, etc.) or do you think that narrative is mostly a fabrication?I think teams have mostly hesitated to trade with the Lakers because they’ve had a unique set of needs and little to pay for them. The past two first-round picks — Jalen Hood-Schifino and Dalton Kencht — have greatly hampered the Lakers’ ability to provide teams with promising young players in deals. And the Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook trades left the Lakers withoutcustomizeplate asks: Do the Lakers care about Luka’s upcoming free agency offseason? Do they just think every star will resign with them just because there the “Lakers” while they do marginal moves every offseason?If they don’t — they need to be.Sam Amick and I reported that the Lakers were “on the clock” with Dončić right after the end of last season, and nothing I’ve heard from my sources would change that thought process. Dončić is in the prime of his career and was traded away from a roster built to his specifications to compete for NBA titles. And if the Lakers can’t provide that, maybe he looks elsewhere (if anybody should understand that this is business, it’s Dončić).He’s under contract with the Lakers for two more seasons with a player option in the third. Before the 2028 season, he’s eligible for a mega contract that could be worth more $417 million. That’s a lot of money to walk away from, but I think there’s an actual threat that he could have a wandering eye if the Lakers can’t deliver on the plans they presented last summer.How the Lakers handle this summer, how their decisions play out, how they’re reacted to by Dončić could have ripples for years inside the organization and around the league. The Lakers don’t have to solve all their roster issues in one transaction period — but they have to start finding the answers.
