The Lakers finally have the kind of two-way perimeter player they spent last season wishing for.
With the NBA’s free-agent moratorium lifted, Los Angeles made its four-year agreement with Quentin Grimes official this week, and the 26-year-old guard will wear No. 5. The deal is worth $60 million over four years and includes a player option on the final season.
For a franchise rebuilding around Luka Doncic in its first summer without LeBron James, the fit matters more than the name. Grimes will not headline anyone’s offseason, but he plugs directly into a hole that lingered all of last season: a rangy guard who can defend on the perimeter and make shots without needing the ball in his hands.
The two-way guard the Lakers kept lacking
The need was created by who left. Marcus Smart signed with Houston and Luke Kennard headed to Phoenix, stripping the bench of both its point-of-attack defender and one of its most trusted shooters in the same summer.
Grimes, in theory, covers a little of each. Across five NBA seasons he has built his reputation as a catch-and-shoot threat and a willing defender against opposing guards — precisely the archetype the Lakers have chased for years.
The shooting has been dependable rather than dazzling. Grimes is a career 36.6 percent shooter from 3-point range, though that number slipped to 33.4 percent last season in Philadelphia.
Playing off Doncic and Austin Reaves, he should see the kind of clean, rhythm looks that tend to correct a dip like that. Few guards in the league will get better spot-up chances than the ones Doncic’s passing generates, and hunting those shots is exactly what Grimes does best.
The bigger value is on the other end. At a listed 6-foot-5 and 207 pounds, per NBA.com, he has the size and foot speed to take the tougher perimeter matchup off Reaves on most nights, and to give Doncic occasional cover against quicker guards — a luxury last season’s roster rarely offered.
The JJ Redick connection
There is also a relationship here that predates both the contract and Redick’s coaching career. Back in the summer of 2023, when Grimes was with the Knicks and Redick was still an analyst and podcaster, Grimes cold-messaged him to ask for offseason work and ended up training with him for two days at Redick’s place in the Hamptons.
Grimes recounted the story on “The Young Man and the Three”, the rebranded version of Redick’s old podcast, saying Redick immediately picked up on details in his footwork and correctly guessed he had been playing through a knee issue.
A coach and player who already know each other’s games that well — years before they wound up on the same team — is not a small edge when the whole bet is on Grimes taking a step forward in a defined role. Redick’s system asks perimeter players to move, space the floor and defend with discipline, the same traits Grimes has flashed in stretches. This pairing did not happen by accident.
More than a role player on his best nights
Grimes arrives with a higher ceiling than his career line suggests. After Philadelphia acquired him at the 2025 trade deadline, he slid into a featured role and scored like a lead option down the stretch, averaging close to 22 points per game over a 28-game run.
His playoff spring offered another flash. In a Game 5 win over Boston, Grimes dropped 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting with four 3-pointers. The production cooled as that series wore on, and consistency remains the fair critique. But the ability that produced those nights is genuine, and Los Angeles is wagering that a stable role coaxes more of it out of him.
For his career, Grimes has averaged 11.1 points per game on 44.6 percent shooting. Last season, he posted 13.4 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game, a balanced line for a player who spent long stretches as Philadelphia’s primary perimeter creator.
A Luka reunion, and a bet on the price
Grimes brings a familiar wrinkle, too. He and Doncic were briefly teammates in Dallas during the 2024-25 season before both were dealt in separate moves.
The reunion makes for a nice subplot, but the basketball logic holds on its own: a movement shooter and secondary attacker is the type of complementary piece Doncic has consistently lifted.
The contract is where views diverge. Four years and $60 million is a real commitment for a player who has mostly been a rotation regular, and skeptics will point out that the Lakers spent heavily this summer on a supporting cast with no All-Star among them.
The counter is that roughly $15 million per season is a fair rate for a starting-caliber two-way guard in this market, and the player option hands Grimes a route back to free agency if he outplays the deal.
He reached this payday the hard way. A year ago Grimes bet on himself, accepting a qualifying offer worth $8.74 million rather than locking into a longer deal below his valuation, per Spotrac. That gamble set up this summer’s raise.
Where he fits in the rotation
Grimes projects to start on the wing next to Doncic and Reaves, with the newly signed Collin Sexton and the newly acquired Jaden Hardy adding scoring off the bench. It is a younger, more athletic group than the one that was swept out of the second round by Oklahoma City in the spring.
One need still lingers, and it is why the offseason is not finished: a bigger, switchable forward who can check the game’s best wings. That is the reason the front office remains in active pursuit of Jonathan Kuminga even after emptying most of its cap space. Grimes helps at guard; he does not answer the forward question.
Even so, for a role that sat unfilled all of last season, the Lakers landed a player who fits it cleanly, at a number they can stomach, and who already has a running start with his head coach. In a summer defined by the departures of bigger names, the quiet Grimes signing may prove one of the most useful moves Los Angeles made.
