Los Angeles Lakers: 5 Best Free Agents To Target For 2013-14
Dwight Howard is arguably the top free agent and Los Angeles Lakers will do anything to keep him. (Photo by Howard Cheng/Wikimedia Commons)
The Los Angeles Lakers’ disaster of a season has come to an end. However, the nightmare is far from over as free agency looms. Dwight Howard is set to become one of this year’s unrestricted free agents and the Lakers don’t really have any cap room to go elsewhere.
The team is way over the cap and don’t exactly have the flexibility to go after the big names in the free agency. The only way to raise funds is to amnesty players like Metta World Peace, who is scheduled to make $7.727 million if he accepts his player option as expected, or dare I say, Kobe Bryant, which would clear more than $30 million from next year’s guaranteed monies.
The good news is, Dwight Howard is still a very likely possibility and there might be some players out there willing to join for a cut price. Here are some free agents the Lakers should look to bring on board/retain.
Dwight Howard
There’s no two ways about it, the Lakers have to re-sign Dwight Howard. Kobe Bryant will be 35 in August and will be coming back from an Achilles tear which has ruined so many careers in the past. L.A. has to build around Superman because without him, the future is bleak at best.
The Lakers can offer him a max contract worth about $118 million over five years, which is roughly $30 million more than anyone else can offer. Problem is, Dwight Howard is a bit unpredictable and has other possible suitors in this year’s free agency. Namely his hometown Atlanta Hawks or the Dallas Mavericks, who stacked up the one-year contracts specifically for a shot at him this offseason after last year’s failure.
Don’t be surprised if Cleveland creeps up in the mix too. The Cavs already have a running mate for Howard in Kyrie Irving and the cap room to pull the move off.
In a nut shell, it’s Howard or Bust this season for the Lakers.
Since Mike D’Antoni’s system is based on 3-point shooting, you’d think that would be their main focus after Howard. Having the team rank 19th again, shooting just 35 percent from beyond the arc, just won’t cut it.
Belinelli has been in decline from 3-point range in the past two seasons, but he’s still a career 38 percent shooter and teams still have to respect him.
He’s hit some big shots for the undermanned Chicago Bulls both during the regular season and postseason. You’d imagine he’ll get more opportunities to shine (and maybe win) playing alongside Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash.
Also, I doubt he’ll be too costly as he’s earning less than $2 million on his current contract with Chicago and he hasn’t done anything spectacular to command a big payday.
Kyle Korver of the Atlanta Hawks watches a 3-point attempt during a Feb. 6, 2013, game at Philips Arena in Atlanta. (Photo by Mark Runyon a.k.a. Basketball Schedule/Flickr.com)
Kyle Korver was the NBA’s second-best 3-point shooter in the regular season, making 45 percent of his attempts. The Lakers would love to have him as a compliment to their assortment of inside scoring but it’s not that easy.
Korver earned $5 million in 2012-13 and will be looking to cash in on his stellar shooting season. However, maybe Lakers’ general manager Mitch Kupchak can work his magic and get him for cheap.
Francisco Garcia
You can never have too many shooters in your team, just ask the Miami Heat who can throw a plethora of shooters at you. And if one is struggling, you can always take the next man up approach to compliment the inside game.
I fully expect Francisco Garcia to hit the open market this year. That’s because I doubt Houston would be willing to fork out the $6.4 million Garcia is due to make in the 2013-14 season if the Rockets pick up their option.
Granted he’s been struggling to stay healthy recently, making no more than 58 regular-season appearances in each of the past four years. However, he still managed to hit 37 percent of his 3s in the regular season and 45 percent in Houston’s postseason run.
You could argue L.A. already has Jodie Meeks (possibly), Steve Nash and Steve Blake for the shooting roles doesn’t need Garcia but in D’Antoni’s world the more, the merrier.
The Lakers should look to make resigning Earl Clark a priority whether before or during the free-agency period. I say this because Earl Clark has the capability to play as the stretch 4 Mike D’Antoni so desires.
Although he didn’t hit any 3s during the team’s brief stint in the playoffs, Clark did hit nearly 34 percent of his 104 long-range attempts in the regular season. That’s not exactly amazing until you realize that he’d only ever attempted just 10 3s in his NBA career before the 2012-13 season.
Standing at 6’10”, Clark is long enough and athletic enough to stay with small forwards defensively. And if he adds to his 225lbs frame, he could be troublesome to opposing 4s as he proved when he filled in pretty nicely when L.A. was thin on big men.
D’Antoni rewarded the Louisville alum by playing him 23.4 minutes a contest as he provided 7.7 points and 5.5 rebounds a game to earn himself sixth-man status.
His 3-point shooting is bound to improve even further under the tutelage of Mike D’Antoni and his staff and that could make him a very problematic tweener to deal with for years to come.