{"id":848629,"date":"2026-09-15T13:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T13:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/848629\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T13:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T13:12:14","slug":"pacific-notes-lakers-smart-warriors-booker-simmons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/848629\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific Notes: Lakers, Smart, Warriors, Booker, Simmons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asked by Yossi Gozlan during an episode of The Third Apron podcast if the Lakers essentially chose Collin Sexton<\/a> over Marcus Smart<\/a> in free agency, Lakers insider Jovan Buha suggested that the former Defensive Player of the Year may not have been enthusiastic about re-signing in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have great clarity on this, and there\u2019s differing accounts of how it all went down,\u201d Buha said (YouTube link<\/a>; hat tip to LakersNation<\/a>). \u201cBut my understanding is that, to some degree, Smart was ready to move forward in a different situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early in the morning on July 1, Smart accepted a two-year, $12.4MM offer from the Rockets that includes a second-year player option. Several hours later, word broke that the Lakers had reached deals deals with Walker Kessler<\/a>, Quentin Grimes<\/a>, Sandro Mamukelashvili<\/a>, and Sexton, who signed a two-year, $19.2MM contract with L.A.<\/p>\n

We have more from around the Pacific:<\/p>\n

Within a speculative discussion about which impact players could emerge as Warriors\u2019 trade targets within the next year or two, Tim Kawakami noted on his Warriors Plus Minus podcast<\/a> (19:04 mark) that Golden State is high on Suns star Devin Booker<\/a>, whom Steve Kerr coached during the 2024 Olympics. \u201cI think the Warriors like him too much, if you ask me,\u201d Kawakami said. \u201cBut they love him. Steve loves him. Booker loved playing for Steve.\u201d
\nAddressing the recent addition of Ben Simmons<\/a> on a non-guaranteed minimum-salary contract, Kings general manager Scott Perry said he\u2019s excited to \u201chelp be a part of his journey to get back on the court,\u201d as Sean Cunningham of KCRA News relays (Twitter video link<\/a>). \u201cKnock on wood, he\u2019s healthy right now,\u201d Perry said. \u201cI know it\u2019s been a long journey to get back to that point. (It\u2019s exciting) just being able to be a part of that with him and hopefully watch him get back on the basketball floor and do some of the things that made him such a special player early in his career.\u201d Second-year Kings guard Nique Clifford<\/a> added that he believes Simmons will be a player he can \u201clearn from,\u201d since the former No. 1 overall pick has been through \u201chighs and lows\u201d over the course of his NBA career.
\nSteve Ballmer\u2019s decision not to pursue legal action<\/a> against the NBA after initially vowing to fight its sanctions for cap circumvention is a logical one, according to Michael McCann of Sportico<\/a>, who observes that any litigation brought by the Clippers would \u201copen the door to judicial scrutiny of transactions that now appear to be of interest to federal investigators<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asked by Yossi Gozlan during an episode of The Third Apron podcast if the Lakers essentially chose Collin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[24002,79567,36057,20467,355,160822,99,30534],"class_list":["post-848629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ben-simmons","tag-collin-sexton","tag-devin-booker","tag-marcus-smart","tag-nba","tag-nique-clifford","tag-sports","tag-steve-kerr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848629","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=848629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}