The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the more interesting teams in the NBA as free agency approaches this summer, as a significant portion of their roster could hit the open market.
Players like LeBron James, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, Marcus Smart, Luka Kennard, Deandre Ayton and Jaxson Hayes are among those potentially entering free agency for Los Angeles, and as one NBA executive put it, the situation is going to force the team to make a “painful decision or two.”
“That means that the Lakers will have some choices to make,” wrote Sean Deveney of Heavy Sports. “Increasingly, word is that the Lakers like a lot of the players they have on hand, and rather than making sweeping changes to the roster, could instead bring back a lot of last season’s players with just one midrange addition worth in the $20 million AAV range, likely for a big man.
“Making choices on getting rid of players who helped on the floor and in the locker room–Smart and Hachimura, perhaps–won’t be easy. ‘They have cap space and that’s a great position to be in,’ one Western Conference executive said. ‘But they really like their group. They’re going to have to make a painful decision or two with that roster.'”
This offseason presents the Lakers with a chance to make some major changes to their roster if they want to, but it sounds like they’re interested in retaining a lot of key pieces. Unfortunately, some tough calls will still have to be made, as detailed by the anonymous executive.
The Lakers may feel like they didn’t get a fair chance to evaluate their 2025-26 squad in the playoffs given how the injury bug impacted the run. The expectation was that L.A.’s star trio of Doncic, James and Reaves would get a chance to do some damage in the postseason, but instead, the trio didn’t get a single playoff game together.
Doncic missed the entire run due to a hamstring injury, and Reaves missed a chunk of the first round due to his oblique. James was the only member of the trio to play in every postseason game. For what it’s worth, he rose to the occasion, helping the Lakers win their first-round series before they were ultimately eliminated in the second round.
That second-round series was a bit of a reality check for the Purple and Gold, as they were swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in four games and lost three of those games by double digits. Many felt like the Lakers would have lost the series even with Doncic, but his 33.5 points, 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game certainly would have made some type of impact.
If the team can add an impact big this summer and retain many of its key pieces from this season, that may be enough to increase optimism in L.A. But as the anonymous executive put it, that isn’t going to stop the franchise from having to make some painful choices.
