{"id":786605,"date":"2026-07-08T08:57:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/786605\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T08:57:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:57:38","slug":"lakers-land-their-backup-center-in-veteran-kevon-looney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/786605\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers land their backup center in veteran Kevon Looney"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Lakers<\/a> got their backup big man when Kevon Looney<\/a> signed a one-year, $3.9-million deal on Tuesday, people not authorized to speak publicly told The Times.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-9 Looney won three championships with the Golden State Warriors, in 2017, 2018 and 2022. He played last season with the New Orleans Pelicans. Looney, 30, is an 11-year veteran who went to UCLA. He\u2019s a strong rebounder, a very good defender and he sets solid screens for teammates.<\/p>\n

Looney will be the backup behind starter Walker Kessler<\/a>, who was acquired in a trade<\/a> from the Utah Jazz and agreed to a four-year, $130-million deal. The Lakers traded<\/a> last season\u2019s starting center, Deandre Ayton, and backup Jaxson Hayes signed with the Jazz.<\/p>\n

The Lakers now have a 14-man roster and have room for another player.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Kuminga is a player the Lakers are after, according to people with knowledge of the situation who said L.A. is looking at a two-year, $20-million deal for Kuminga, the sort of athletic wing player the Lakers need to start at small forward.<\/p>\n

He has the size (6-7) and is young (23). He averaged 12.2 points and 5.6 rebounds and shot 33.3% from three-point range last season while playing for the Warriors and Atlanta Hawks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lakers got their backup big man when Kevon Looney signed a one-year, $3.9-million deal on Tuesday, people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[371278,362124,64,63,371280,5552,7227,77102,2873,371277,590,1861,15624,371281,371282,85,59131,64631,371279],"class_list":["post-786605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-9-million-deal","tag-athletic-wing-player","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-backup-center","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-laker","tag-lakers","tag-looney","tag-nba","tag-people","tag-player","tag-solid-screen","tag-sort","tag-sports","tag-teammate","tag-times","tag-veteran-kevon-looney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786605","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=786605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}