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UPDATE: The Los Angeles Lakers may have been interested in Seth Curry, but he is instead signing with the Dallas Mavericks as L.A. continues to wait on Kawhi Leonard. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN broke the news, and Marc Stein of the New York Times had the contract details:
Guard Seth Curry has reached an agreement with Dallas, league source tells ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 1, 2019
Seth Curry has reached terms on a four-year deal, $32 million deal with Dallas, league sources say
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) July 1, 2019
Original story follows.
Regardless of if the Los Angeles Lakers use all of their approximately $32 million in salary cap space on one star or elect to spread it among multiple players, the team will need shooters around LeBron James and Anthony Davis next season. To that end, they’ve reached out to one of the best available on the market: Seth Curry.
The Lakers have also reached out to the reps of free agent guard Seth Curry, per source. Curry is the type of long range shooter the Lakers want. He shot 45.6% from the field last season in Portland, 45% from three. He averaged 7.9 points in 74 games.
— Brad Turner (@BA_Turner) June 30, 2019
The other numbers get even better:
Really, Seth Curry was just incredible in the P&R last season. pic.twitter.com/4tkEbB1OKN
— Jacob Rude (@JacobRude) June 30, 2019
In short: Curry would instantly give the Lakers their most capable shooter in quite some time.
It’s unknown exactly how much Curry will cost, but in a league that values shooting as much as ever, he would seemingly only be a real option for the Lakers if they’re splitting up their cap space for a few role players rather than using the limited means they’d have at their disposal if they signed another max player.
NBA sets salary cap for next season at $109.140 million, slightly higher than expected.
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) June 30, 2019
Of interest to Laker fans, the room exception mid-level will be $4.767 million next season.
And regardless of how highly the Lakers value Curry, it’s unlikely that they’ll be chasing him very hard until they figure out what their star targets are going to do, and if guys like Kawhi Leonard or Jimmy Butler, among several others, take their time, then Curry may have already been snapped up by a team that wasn’t in contention for those players and just wanted to make sure they closed the deal with him.
So the bottom line is that it’s a good thing the Lakers are targeting the right kinds of players and keeping their options open, but to call Curry a sure thing (or anything close to it) at this point would be doing all of us a disservice. This is good news, but also doesn’t mean much just yet. It’s okay to get excited, just don’t start photoshopping him and Leonard into the same photo right away.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. Here is a list of every free agent credibly connected to the Lakers so far. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.