The Lakers have officially signed big man Jay Huff to an Exhibit 10 contract, the team announced today (via Twitter).
Huff, who went undrafted out of Virginia in 2021, spent the first couple months of his rookie season on a two-way contract with the Lakers and appeared in four NBA games before being waived. The 7’1″ center continued to play for the South Bay Lakers in the G League after being released by the NBA team, averaging 15.7 PPG, 6.1 RPG, and 2.5 BPG in 28 regular season NBAGL games, all starts (25.9 MPG).
Huff suited up for the Lakers’ Summer League teams in San Francisco and Las Vegas this summer and played well, averaging 10.5 PPG, 4.8 RPG, and 3.0 BPG in four appearances (18.4 MPG).
The Lakers now have 19 players under contract. Of those, 12 have guaranteed deals, two (Austin Reaves and Wenyen Gabriel) have standard non-guaranteed contracts, and two (Cole Swider and Scotty Pippen Jr.) are on two-way deals. Huff joins Fabian White and Javante McCoy as the players on Exhibit 10 pacts.
I liked this guy a lot in summer league last year and this year. Skilled big, can space the floor, puts the ball on the floor, has good hands, good finisher, set good screens, uses his length well defensively, etc. I think he can potentially be a depth big at some point, although there are others of similar skillset. I’m curious to see how he looks a year or 2 from now b/c I dont think he is far from being an NBA player, besides not many bigs with his skillset being as rosterable right now, outside of certain roles