{"id":794016,"date":"2026-07-30T20:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/794016\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T20:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:34:11","slug":"mitchell-robinson-looks-to-have-been-plan-b-for-lakers-this-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/794016\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitchell Robinson looks to have been Plan B for Lakers this offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">With teams like the Thunder and Spurs possessing dominant frontcourt players, it was clear obtaining a center was a high priority for Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">Had it not been Kessler, the Lakers, according to team and league sources, would\u2019ve likely tried to sign free agent center Mitchell Robinson, who left the New York Knicks to sign a three-year, $47.4 million deal with Boston.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">While Robinson is a fine player, he is definitely not at Kessler\u2019s level. Last year, Robinson averaged 5.7 points and 8.8 rebounds per game. He\u2019s a solid defender and an efficient scorer, shooting 72.3% from the field last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">However, Kessler has far better production. During the 2024-25 season, Kessler averaged 11.1 points, 12.2 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Lakers President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka had to have backup plans in place in case the top option wasn\u2019t acquirable. Luckily for them, things worked out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The Lakers got Kessler, and Robinson ended up signing a three-year $47.4 million deal with the Celtics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">This was an interesting Plan B. Hopefully, Plan A works out even better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With teams like the Thunder and Spurs possessing dominant frontcourt players, it was clear obtaining a center was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[315490,24072,355,99],"class_list":["post-794016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-lakers-free-agency","tag-lakers-rumors","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794016","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=794016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}