The Lakers are once again at the center of the NBA offseason – The Athletic | After slow start to…

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The Lakers are once again at the center of the NBA offseason – The Athletic

It’s the complaint that they all have, the exhausted, the annoyed, the aggrieved. The NBA, no matter what the mass media says, is more than the Los Angeles Lakers. Every time a big-name player gets released, every time a big-name free agent hits the market, every time a star wants a trade, an army of purple-and-gold photoshops arrives with the talking heads to turn the league’s eyes to the West.

But here in the early moments of the NBA offseason, the Lakers have firmly established themselves as the main character, for better or worse, because of their glaring deficiency at center, because of the big decisions ahead and because their two superstars are at wildly different stages in their career.

After slow start to free agency, where do Lakers, LeBron James go from here?

Two things have made the first 48 hours of free agency unusual for LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.

First, the Lakers have started slowly. It’s no secret Los Angeles entered free agency looking for a center, but players it was linked to have already found new homes with more aggressive teams — Brook Lopez is just across town with the Clippers. Nobody was as aggressive as the Bucks in finding a way to get Myles Turner out of Indiana. Clint Capela is back in Houston.

The Lakers are talking to agents. The names we hear now, maybe they get Al Horford, or maybe Deandre Ayton. You can feel Luka Doncic’s eyes rolling.

"Is Rob Pelinka insane?" – Kevin O'Connor can't believe Rob Pelinka let Dorian Finney-Smith go because he wants to save cap space for 2027

"Is Rob Pelinka insane?" – Kevin O'Connor can't believe Rob Pelinka let Dorian Finney-Smith go because he wants to save cap space for 2027 originally appeared on Basketball Network.

The first day of the 2025 NBA free agency saw a lot of teams make moves and get better, while some of them made a head-scratching decision. The Los Angeles Lakers are one of them as they did not get the center they desperately needed, but they also lost 3-and-D forward Dorian Finney-Smith to the Houston Rockets and ended the day by signing Jake LaRavia to a two-year deal.

According to a report from ESPN's Dave McMenamin, the Lakers did not try to keep Finney-Smith because GM Rob Pelinka is saving money for the future. That reasoning drew a violent reaction from Yahoo Sports' Kevin O'Connor:

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