{"id":25805,"date":"2025-07-21T09:50:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/25805\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T09:50:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:50:13","slug":"marcus-smart-signing-two-year-11-million-lakers-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/25805\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcus Smart signing two-year, $11 million Lakers contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marcus Smart is heading out west. <\/p>\n<p>The veteran forward has agreed to a buyout of his contract by the Wizards, and he \u201cintends\u201d to sign a two-year, $11 million contract with the Lakers, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/45775886\/sources-marcus-smart-plans-join-lakers-wizards-buyout\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania first reported<\/a> Saturday. <\/p>\n<p>The NBA insider reported that the Lakers, Bucks and Suns were the three teams in serious pursuit of the 2021-22 Defensive Player of the Year. Luke Doncic reportedly talked with Smart and wanted him in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>Smart, one of the top defenders in the NBA, has been limited to just 54 games the past two seasons due to various injuries.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.51032448;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"36586430\" width=\"891\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2209112211.jpg\" alt=\"Marcus Smart #36 of the Washington Wizards walks down the court during the game against the Orlando Magicat Capital One Arena on April 03, 2025 in Washington, DC.\" class=\"wp-image-36586430\"  \/>Marcus Smart of the Washington Wizards walks down the court during the game against the Orlando Magic at Capital One Arena on April 3, 2025 in Washington, DC. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>After spending the first eight years of his career with the Celtics, Smart made pit stops with the Grizzlies and Wizards the last two seasons. <\/p>\n<p>When he did play in 2024-25, he averaged 9.0 points, 3.2 assists and 2.3 rebounds in a career-low 20 minutes per game.<\/p>\n<p>Smart, 31, now joins a Lakers team that finished 50-32 and third in the Western Conference before losing in the first round to the Timberwolves.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/07\/10\/sports\/knicks-options-for-final-free-agent-spot-chris-paul-marcus-smart\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Post\u2019s Stefan Bondy previously reported<\/a> that the Knicks were going to monitor the Smart situation if he was indeed bought out of his contract. <\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"36586433\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2208417881.jpg\" alt=\"Marcus Smart #36 of the Washington Wizards goes to the basket against the Miami Heat during the first half at Capital One Arena on March 31, 2025 in Washington, DC.\" class=\"wp-image-36586433\"  \/>Marcus Smart of the Washington Wizards goes to the basket against the Miami Heat during the first half at Capital One Arena on March 31, 2025 in Washington, DC. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>But now Smart appears to be heading to the other coast on another team that\u2019s in win-now mode with Doncic and LeBron James.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marcus Smart is heading out west. The veteran forward has agreed to a buyout of his contract by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1055,20467,355,7626,99,11948],"class_list":["post-25805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-marcus-smart","tag-nba","tag-nba-free-agency","tag-sports","tag-washington-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}