The Lakers have officially announced the signing of swingman Lonnie Walker, confirming the move today in a press release. Walker’s agreement with Los Angeles was first reported last Thursday night.
It’s the fourth free agent deal the Lakers have made official since the start of free agency last week. Minimum-salary contracts, like the ones signed by Damian Jones, Juan Toscano-Anderson, and Troy Brown, can become official during the July moratorium, but Walker’s one-year, $6.5MM contract is being completed using L.A.’s taxpayer mid-level exception and had to wait until the moratorium lifted today.
Walker, the 18th pick of the 2018 draft, spent his first four seasons with the Spurs. The 23-year-old has displayed a ton of athleticism and has shown glimpses of potential since his entering the NBA, but struggled with his scoring efficiency last season, posting a .407/.314/.784 shooting line.
In 70 games (23 MPG) with San Antonio in 2021/22, Walker averaged 12.1 PPG, 2.6 RPG and 2.2 APG.
The Spurs decided to withdraw Walker’s qualifying offer just before free agency opened, making him an unrestricted free agent and clearing a path for him to sign with any team.
Walker should have an opportunity to play a regular rotation role on a revamped Lakers roster and will be looking to build his value back up before he returns to free agency in 2023. He said today that he’d welcome the opportunity to start for L.A., but his primary focus is winning (Twitter link via Kyle Goon of The Southern California News Group).
Amazing offseason for the Lakers
Good risk/reward signing, assuming he has a path to regular minutes. IDK what went wrong with him in SAS, but their depth chart at his spot was congested.
He’s too good right now. He would’ve messed up the Spurs’ tanking plans.
No clue why SAS would pull the offer and what the hell they gonna do with all that cap left
Seems like SAS didn’t really care for this guy, mins erratic, no sense of them ever trying to construct a role for him etc etc
When they did just let play for long stretches’ (check 2-14 thru 3-14 last year) he scored very well
8 outta 13 games w 20+, couple 17 point games , and a 30 piece in there
I checked those games, and the Spurs went 3-8 and Walker had a below-average GmSc and minus +/-. There may have been other reasons, like injuries that put him over 30′ pg in the first place.
Pops planning on a teaching mode presumably thought he could not improve this player. Athleticism is only one aspect of talent.
Interesting comparison made below to Shannon Brown, an athletic type the Lakers resurrected a decade or two ago.
Nothing special am athletic guard that can’t shoot unfortunately
Spurs are clearly tanking for #1. No PG. Rich and Doug gonna be gone b4 the deadline. No mystery at this point how they are operating. They really want that French dude to be the next duncan.
He has to work seriously on his shooting, and defense as a matter of fact.
Maybe he can become a Shannon Brown type of player on that LAL championship squad.
Athletic player who makes some highlight dunks, plays good defense and eventually cashes in some 3’s.