Klay Thompson to Lakers rumors: How Los Angeles can land Warriors sharpshooter in free agency
Klay Thompson to Lakers rumors: How Los Angeles can land Warriors sharpshooter in free agency
One thing seems certain: Klay Thompson will no longer be a Warrior. Where he ends up is much more open-ended.
The two Thompson front-runners as of Monday morning are the Mavericks and Lakers, per Yahoo's Jake Fischer. The Lakers seem like a great fit on paper — LeBron James has personally appealed to Thompson and Thompson's dad still calls games for the team.
"They're a step away," ESPN's Brian Windhorst said on ESPN's Get Up show. "They've got to make an intermediate trade. If they make that intermediate trade, I think their chances increase."
What is that step, and how likely is it to happen?
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Klay Thompson's path to the Lakers
The Lakers do not have a ton of wiggle room to sign Thompson. James still needs to be inked to a new deal after opting out and becoming an unrestricted free agent. They also lost the ability to use their $13 million mid-level exception after D'Angelo Russell surprisingly opted into his $18.7 million option.
As it stands now, Los Angeles would only have $5 million to offer Thompson.
There are a couple of ways that the Lakers could open up some more spending power. The easiest is for James to take much less than the $50 million that he should easily get. That may be a possibility, according to Adrian Wojnarowski. If James takes a significant pay cut, then that money could be reallocated to reopening the mid-level exception and giving it to Thompson
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If James isn't willing to sacrifice tens of millions of dollars, another pathway to landing Thompson is to offload some salary in a trade without taking any players back. There are not a lot of teams remaining that fit that criteria. The Jazz lead all teams with a projected $39.7 million in space, per Spotrac. The Pistons, Magic, Spurs and Hornets also can open up enough cap space to help the Lakers out.
The easiest way to open up that space would ironically be to trade Russell, who just praised the Lakers after opting into his deal. Rui Hachimura's $17 million deal could be another option.
The third way that the Lakers could get Thompson is through a sign-and-trade with the Warriors. This would give him a higher salary than the $13 million mid-level exception and could make Los Angeles a more attractive option over Dallas. The Lakers would have to send out matching salary in such a trade, so some combination of Russell, Hachimura, Gabe Vincent and Jarred Vanderbilt would be shipped out.
The Lakers would have to make it worth Golden State's time to help facilitate a sign-and-trade. That could mean losing young prospects like Jalen Hood-Schifino or the recently-selected Dalton Knecht. Los Angeles also has its 2029 and 2031 first-round picks available to trade, along with five second-rounders.
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Klay Thompson's fit with the Lakers
If the Lakers did land Thompson, he could certainly help them. He's not the defender that he used to be, but he can still guard slower forwards capably. And his shooting is still elite. He hit 38.7 percent of his 3s last season, which is made more impressive by the degree of difficulty on some of his movement shots.
Thompson could experience a bit of a career renaissance on the Lakers when tasked with an easier offensive role than he had on the Warriors. His biggest issues came from poor shot selection and trying to create too much. His shots would be a lot simpler in Los Angeles coming from James or Anthony Davis double-teams. He would help the Lakers improve their 3-point volume, where they ranked 28th last season.
The Mavericks still may be the better fit for Thompson from a winning perspective. They're closer to a championship, and they already made nice upgrades in Naji Marshall and Quentin Grimes. The Lakers are going to have to be competitive financially to land him.