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They did it. The Lakers lured one of the league’s most coveted free agents from Toronto. That’s right: Danny Green is headed to Los Angeles!
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the 32-year-old shooting guard plans to sign a deal with the Lakers:
Free agent Danny Green plans to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers, league sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium. The Dallas Mavericks were also pursuing Green.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 6, 2019
Shortly after that, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported the terms of the deal:
Free agent guard Danny Green will sign a two-year, $30M deal with the Los Angeles Lakers, league source tells ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 6, 2019
Green is an excellent pick up for Los Angeles in the aftermath of Kawhi Leonard’s decision to sign with the LA Clippers for a few reasons.
For starters, he’s a lights-out 3-point shooter. Last season, Green shot a career-high 45.5 percent from behind the arc while attempting 5.6 3-pointers per game. The six other players to average at least 40 percent from 3-point range on at least five attempts per game were Joe Harris, Danilo Gallinari, Buddy Hield, Klay Thompson, Kyrie Irving and, of course, Stephen Curry. He’s among the best 3-point shooters in the NBA.
However, one thing he does better than all of the aforementioned 3-point marksmen is defend. This past season, Green posted a Defensive Real Plus-Minus of +2.16, which was the second-highest DRPM among shooting guards — trailing only Jimmy Butler — and the 42nd-highest in the NBA. He hasn’t posted a negative Defensive Box Plus-Minus since 2011.
Green definitely isn’t the elite talent Leonard is, but he’s still a good a fit alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and doesn’t need the ball to generate his offense. In fact, 60.2 percent of his shots were of the catch-and-shoot variety with the Raptors last season. Of those shots, he drained 47.2 percent of them, including 47.4 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers.
Assuming Davis still intends to waive his trade kicker, the Lakers will have $17 million in cap space to fill out their bench. They will also have the room exception worth $4.72 million. It’s going to be interesting to see who else they sign to fill out their bench on the now-barren free agent market, but they’re off to a great start to making the best of the situation after missing out on Leonard.
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.