{"id":845637,"date":"2026-09-12T20:54:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T20:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/845637\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T20:54:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T20:54:41","slug":"nick-smith-jr-to-sign-with-real-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/845637\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Smith Jr. To Sign With Real Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>1:02 pm:\u00a0Smith has agreed to a one-year deal with Real Madrid, agents Lucas Newton and Calvin Andrews tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MikeAScotto\/status\/2098834438150902199\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter link<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Nick-Smith-Jr.-vert-206x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"206\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-471650\"  \/>10:53 am: Could <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/smithni01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-09-12_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Nick Smith Jr.<\/a> continue his career overseas? He\u2019s close to signing with Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid, Chema de Lucas reports (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/chemadelucas\/status\/2098784612856074699\" rel=\"nofollow\">via Twitter<\/a>; hat tip to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/real-madrid-closing-in-on-nick-smith-jr-deal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sportando<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Smith hit the free agent market after the Lakers <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2026\/06\/lakers-smith-kings-hayes-have-team-options-declined.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">declined<\/a> their option on his 2026\/27 contract in late June.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, the 27th pick in the 2023 draft, spent nearly the entire 2025\/26 season on a two-way contract with the Lakers before being promoted to the 15-man roster just ahead of the playoffs to make him postseason-eligible. The 22-year-old guard appeared in 30 regular -season games and provided a little scoring punch off the bench, averaging 6.2 points in 12.5 minutes per contest while making 39.5% of his three-point tries.<\/p>\n<p>Smith also played 18 G League games (29.2 MPG) with the team\u2019s affiliate in South Bay, averaging 19.7 PPG, 5.0 APG and 3.6 RPG on .498\/.370\/.683 shooting splits.<\/p>\n<p>Smith spent his first two seasons with Charlotte, which drafted him out of Arkansas. Smith appeared in 111 games with the Hornets over his first two seasons. Smith signed a two-way deal with the Lakers last September, a few days after he was waived by the Hornets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1:02 pm:\u00a0Smith has agreed to a one-year deal with Real Madrid, agents Lucas Newton and Calvin Andrews tell&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,357815,99],"class_list":["post-845637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-nick-smith","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845637","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=845637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}