{"id":785786,"date":"2026-07-07T23:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785786\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T23:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:47:08","slug":"lakers-kevon-looney-agree-to-nba-free-agent-contract-after-ayton-trade-updated-roster-salary-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785786\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers, Kevon Looney Agree to NBA Free Agent Contract After Ayton Trade, Updated Roster, Salary Cap"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers signed veteran center Kevon Looney in free agency on Tuesday, Life Sports Agency CEO Todd Ramasar told ESPN’s Shams Charania<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Looney agreed to a one-year contract worth $3.9 million with Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The Lakers’ interest in him was clear prior to the signing, as Charania<\/a> previously reported that Looney was among the options they were considering at backup center.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles also traded<\/a> big man Deandre Ayton to the Washington Wizards on Friday, opening up a depth spot for Looney to presumably fill.<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the Lakers’ updated roster:<\/p>\n

PG: Luka Don\u010di\u0107, Collin Sexton, Jaden Hardy, Bronny James<\/p>\n

SG:\u00a0Austin Reaves, Cameron Carr, Dalton Knecht<\/p>\n

SF:\u00a0Quentin Grimes, Jake LaRavia, Adou Thiero<\/p>\n

PF:\u00a0Sandro Mamukelashvili, Jarred Vanderbilt<\/p>\n

C:\u00a0Walker Kessler, Kevon Looney<\/p>\n

The Lakers had $240.7 million in total cap allocations prior to adding Looney (via Spotrac<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old became a free agent after the New Orleans Pelicans declined<\/a> his $8 million team option for the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n

Looney only appeared in 21 games during his lone year with the Pelicans, as they primarily utilized younger options such as Derik Queen and Yves Missi in their center rotation.<\/p>\n

In 14.7 minutes per game, Looney averaged 2.8 points and 5.6 rebounds on a nightly basis while shooting 41.7 percent from the field. <\/p>\n

The Lakers will be hoping that he can make an impact similar to his 10-year stint on the Golden State Warriors, as he won three championships and played a key rotational role on squads that made several deep playoff runs.<\/p>\n

During Looney’s 2024-25 campaign, his final season with Golden State, he averaged 4.5 points and 6.1 rebounds to go along with 1.6 assists per game. He connected on 51.4 percent of his field goals.<\/p>\n

Looney has been effective at crashing the glass throughout his career, pulling down 13.4 rebounds per 36 minutes over the past five years combined.<\/p>\n

He also made his presence felt with his screen-setting ability despite his limited role on the Pelicans last season. Looney averaged 5.1 screen assists per 36 minutes, ranking No. 7 among all players to appear in at least 20 games (via NBA.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

With Ayton getting dealt to the Wizards earlier this offseason, Looney will now operate in a reserve role behind Walker Kessler on the Lakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers signed veteran center Kevon Looney in free agency on Tuesday, Life Sports Agency CEO…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-785786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785786","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=785786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}