{"id":773887,"date":"2026-07-02T08:35:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T08:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773887\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T08:35:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T08:35:31","slug":"lakers-notes-kuminga-kessler-grimes-luka-lebron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773887\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers Notes: Kuminga, Kessler, Grimes, Luka, LeBron"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although the Lakers were eventually upstaged on Wednesday by the stunning Jaylen Brown<\/a> trade agreement<\/a> between the Celtics and Sixers, Los Angeles\u2019 flurry of free agent deals looked like the NBA\u2019s biggest story of the day for much of July 1.<\/p>\n

In the span of 35 minutes, the team went from having upwards of $50MM in cap room available to using<\/a> all of that space<\/a> \u2013 along with its $9.4MM room exception \u2013 to secure<\/a> commitments<\/a> from Walker Kessler<\/a>, Sandro Mamukelashvili<\/a>, Quentin Grimes<\/a>, and Collin Sexton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although the brunt of their offseason work appears to be done, the Lakers continue to keep an eye out for a young wing who could help improve their perimeter defense, league sources tell Dan Woike of The Athletic<\/a>. One potential target receiving \u201csignificant\u201d consideration, Woike reports, is 23-year-old forward Jonathan Kuminga<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Having used all its cap space and its room exception, Los Angeles will only have access to the minimum salary exception. In order to give Kuminga \u2013 or any other free agent \u2013 more than the veteran\u2019s minimum, L.A. would need to work out a sign-and-trade deal with the player\u2019s former team. A player acquired via sign-and-trade must sign for at least three years, though only the first season needs to be fully guaranteed.<\/p>\n

We have more on the Lakers:<\/p>\n

Describing Kessler as \u201ca player (Luka) Doncic<\/a> wanted at center most of all,\u201d Woike cites a team source who says the Lakers believe that the former Jazz center fits \u201cperfectly\u201d alongside guards Doncic and Austin Reaves<\/a>. Los Angeles will pay a steep price to acquire Kessler, sending two first-round picks and two pick swaps to Utah in the sign-and-trade deal.
\nLakers head coach JJ Redick has long been a fan of Grimes, team and league sources tell Woike, who says the team\u2019s four-year, $60MM deal for the former Sixer is a bet on his ability to make an impact on both ends of the floor.
\nAll indications are that the divorce between LeBron James<\/a> and the Lakers has gone about as smoothly as possible for a split of this nature between a superstar and a team. Woike hears from sources that James and Doncic had no personal issues with each other and that they bonded over their newfound love of golf, while Khobi Price of the California Post notes (via Twitter<\/a>) that Doncic posted an Instagram story calling it an honor to \u201cplay with and learn from\u201d the four-time MVP. LeBron also responded to the Lakers\u2019 statement calling him a \u201ccherished part of the Lakers family\u201d with an equally flattering message (Twitter link<\/a>). \u201cNo, THANK YOU!,\u201d James wrote. \u201cTruly an honor to wear the (purple and gold) while trying to continuing the greatness and legacies that came before me! Hope I made a few proud during my stint.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although the Lakers were eventually upstaged on Wednesday by the stunning Jaylen Brown trade agreement between the Celtics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,30097,63,726,7227,7896,11473,16102,85,112058],"class_list":["post-773887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-austin-reaves","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-quentin-grimes","tag-sports","tag-walker-kessler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773887","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=773887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}