{"id":178157,"date":"2025-09-29T17:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T17:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/178157\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T17:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T17:08:07","slug":"lakers-sign-21-year-old-former-1st-round-pick-who-was-inexplicably-still-a-free-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/178157\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers sign 21-year old former 1st-round pick who was inexplicably still a free agent"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> just got better on Monday thanks to the surprising availability of a talented 21-year old scorer in the free agent pool.<\/p>\n

They reached agreement on a two-way contract with Nick Smith Jr., according to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Smith isn’t exactly a household name, but it’s also odd that he was around to be signed in late September.<\/p>\n

The Charlotte Hornets<\/a> drafted Smith No. 27 overall in the 2023 NBA Draft out of Arkansas. He had gone to the Razorbacks as a top-five recruit in the entire country.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-2 guard didn’t see much time in his first season with Charlotte, but last season, he averaged 9.9 points and 2.4 assists per game.<\/p>\n

Smith is a 36.9% 3-point shooter through two NBA seasons.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Hawks bring in champion from EuroLeague<\/a><\/p>\n

The Hornets waived Smith last week rather than pay him $2.7 million in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

Smith isn’t a great defender given his slight frame, but he’s still a potentially useful bench player.<\/p>\n

The Lakers will gladly take the infusion of youth, as Smith won’t turn 22 until April.<\/p>\n

The player this could actually hurt most could be Bronny James, who is at best a bench guard for the Lakers but now has one more player in his way.<\/p>\n

The likes of Gabe Vincent and Jordan Goodwin might also be hit negatively by the signing of Smith.<\/p>\n

The Lakers will hope Smith can continue improving and live up to more of his recruiting and draft pedigree. He’s certainly got potential.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Celtics sign a former Duke star<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers just got better on Monday thanks to the surprising availability of a talented 21-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-178157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}