{"id":767813,"date":"2026-06-29T13:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T13:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/767813\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T13:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T13:09:09","slug":"rockets-believed-to-be-most-likely-to-sign-marcus-smart-in-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/767813\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets believed to be most likely to sign Marcus Smart in free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">As option day approaches, the belief around the league, according to multiple sources, is that Lakers guard Marcus Smart will opt out and seek a longer-term deal in unrestricted free agency. Smart, 32, was a critical piece for the Lakers last season, starting 54 of 62 games and giving the team its most consistent defensive presence on the perimeter. Smart\u2019s best basketball came in the NBA postseason, when the short-handed Lakers upset Houston in the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">Strangely enough, according to team and league sources, the belief is that the Rockets will be the team most likely to land Smart once free agency opens on June 30 thanks to a multi-year deal. Smart played for Rockets coach Ime Udoka in Boston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As option day approaches, the belief around the league, according to multiple sources, is that Lakers guard Marcus&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,172267,85],"class_list":["post-767813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-lakers-rumors","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}