Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
THURSDAY, 3:45pm: The signing is official, the Lakers announced.
SUNDAY, 3:28pm: The Lakers and Lou Williams have agreed to a deal, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). It’ll be a three-year, $21MM arrangement, Wojnarowski adds.
There was said to be mutual interest between Williams and the Heat, but ultimately he’ll be heading west to Los Angeles. The Knicks reportedly reached out to Williams earlier this month and the new client of Wallace Prather was apparently expected to hear from New York and Sacramento, as well as the Nets. The Heat were hot on his heels, but they were limited to the $3.376MM taxpayer’s mid-level exception to get him and we now know that was well short of market value since he’ll earn an average annual value of $7MM per season.
Last season, Williams averaged 15.5 PPG, 2.1 APG, and 1.9 RPG in 25.2 minutes per contest on his way to being recognized as the league’s top bench player. Williams finally looked back to his normal self in 2014/15 for the first time since tearing his right ACL in January 2013. He was a strong fit for the Raptors despite the presence of fellow guards Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, affirming GM Masai Ujiri‘s decision to absorb Williams’ salary in a swap with the Hawks just before the 2013/14 season officially ended last June. The 28-year-old earned $5.45MM last season and he’ll see a healthy pay bump with his new Lakers deal.
Roy and Lou is better then nothing
I like this for the Lakers. That being said, it should be interesting to see him, nick young, and Kobe on one team. He is a ball stopping combo guard
Hey LA Louis coming to LA year a a a a now we are strong. LET GET TO THE FINALS
Lakers now in balance almost
Looks like Kobe gonna see a lot of time at sf this yr with Russell.clarkston.Lou Williams and swaggy p.
Still think Lakers need another big man to back randle up
Well lakers have 3 back up PF. So unless we trade one I don’t see room for other PF
Unless they trade Nick Young, this isn’t a good signing. They already have an abundance of guards so where’s the logic of signing one to an above average contract. They need a small forward and someone to back up Randle and Hibbert.
Young a SF. Since that what the lakers played him at last season. As for back up PF lakers have 3 Kelly and black I believe still in the team and they have the rookie they drafted. As for center I agree unless we want sacre to be the back up
This is a good off season for the lakers because next season Kobe come off the books the young players will have played a season # go lakers