Sixth-man extraordinaire Lou Williams is headed to Los Angeles after signing a three-year, $21 million contract with the Lakers, reports Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski and RealGM’s Shams Charania.
This is glorious. Williams is an unapologetic gunner, and he’s joining a team with two more unapologetic gunners in Kobe Bryant and Nick Young. You know Kobe is already tired of Young’s shit, what’s he going to do when Lou Will takes it upon himself to go for the two-for-one at the end of a quarter? Are the Lakers purposefully trying to annoy Kobe by bringing in guys like Williams and Roy Hibbert? It’s going to be hard to judge to development of young players like D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle after they average zero shots per game for an entire season.
In all seriousness, the Williams move isn’t a bad bet from Los Angeles. Williams is one of the better bench scorers in the game, he can keep non-Kobe lineups afloat offensively, and his $7 million salary will look great once the cap jumps up. Sure, the Lakers struck out on making a splash for yet another summer. But they’ve added some reasonable pieces this summer—Russell, Hibbert, and Williams all make sense for different reasons moving forward. It’s looking more and more like the Lakers are preparing for a post-Kobe existence when his onerous contract comes off the books next summer. By July 2016, Los Angeles will have some solid pieces in Russell, Williams and Randle, and one more chance to reel in superstars who want to play in Hollywood.
[Yahoo Sports | RealGM]
Photo via Associated Press