{"id":7986,"date":"2025-07-20T08:28:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T08:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/7986\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T08:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T08:28:13","slug":"report-smart-signing-with-lakers-after-wizards-buyout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/7986\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Smart signing with Lakers after Wizards buyout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marcus Smart has agreed to a buyout with the Washington Wizards and will join the Los Angeles Lakers once he clears waivers, sources told <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1946678940052975982\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN&#8217;s Shams Charania<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old guard will reportedly sign a two-year, $11-million contract with Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>After Washington permitted Smart&#8217;s agent to speak to other teams, Doncic personally reached out to Smart, hoping to convince him to join him on the Lakers, sources told <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheSteinLine\/status\/1946684099697004791\" rel=\"nofollow\">basketball insider Marc Stein.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The former Defensive Player of the Year began the 2024-25 campaign with the Memphis Grizzlies but was shipped to Washington at the deadline in an unexpected cost-cutting move. He averaged a combined nine points, 3.2 assists, 2.1 rebounds, and 1.1 steals with both teams, coupled with shooting splits of 39.3\/34.8\/76.1.<\/p>\n<p>Though multiple injuries limited him to just 19 games with Memphis, Smart&#8217;s on-court defensive rating of 105.7 points allowed per 100 possessions was the team&#8217;s best mark by any player with at least 200 minutes last season.<\/p>\n<p>Smart will likely bring a more defensive-minded presence to the Lakers&#8217; backcourt, balancing out the scoring provided by Austin Reaves and five-time All-Star Luka Doncic. He also helps make up for the loss of forward Dorian Finney-Smith, who was arguably the team&#8217;s best defender last season but joined the Houston Rockets in free agency.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marcus Smart has agreed to a buyout with the Washington Wizards and will join the Los Angeles Lakers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-7986","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\/7986","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=7986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}