{"id":580075,"date":"2026-04-12T16:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T16:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/580075\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T16:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T16:52:07","slug":"lakers-needing-backcourt-help-sign-nick-smith-jr-to-new-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/580075\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers, needing backcourt help, sign Nick Smith Jr. to new deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/lal\/los-angeles-lakers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> are signing two-way guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4683686\/nick-smith-jr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nick Smith Jr.<\/a> to a new two-year contract, agent Lucas Newton of Klutch Sports told ESPN on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>With star guards <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3945274\/luka-doncic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Luka Doncic<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4066457\/austin-reaves\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Austin Reaves<\/a> sidelined, the Lakers are adding backcourt depth for the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Entering Sunday&#8217;s regular-season finale against the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"77cea2fb-1388-b7c8-d171-2e72b3aecbfb\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/utah\/utah-jazz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Utah Jazz<\/a>, 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 <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"c4aceb39-0eb9-a30b-1120-9cb5b12b677a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/den\/denver-nuggets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Denver Nuggets<\/a> loss to the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"8aef8547-32f5-0943-a1de-e734567674cc\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/sa\/san-antonio-spurs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Antonio Spurs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>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":270469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-580075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580075","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=580075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}