{"id":599612,"date":"2026-04-12T18:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T18:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/599612\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T18:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T18:17:08","slug":"lakers-needing-backcourt-help-sign-nick-smith-jr-to-new-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/599612\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers, needing backcourt help, sign Nick Smith Jr. to new deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Los Angeles Lakers are signing two-way guard Nick Smith Jr. to a new two-year contract, agent Lucas Newton of Klutch Sports told ESPN on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">With star guards Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves sidelined, the Lakers are adding backcourt depth for the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Entering Sunday&#8217;s regular-season finale against the Utah Jazz, the Lakers hold the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference. They could move up to No. 3 with a win over the Jazz and a Denver Nuggets loss to the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In 29 games this season, Smith has averaged 6 points and one assist while shooting 40% from 3 in 12.3 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers are signing two-way guard Nick Smith Jr. to a new two-year contract, agent Lucas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,114816,459,227154,82],"class_list":["post-599612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-los-angeles-lakers-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-13","tag-nba","tag-nick-smith-jr-sports-basketball-player-player-statscom-1401374","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599612","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=599612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}