Heading into what might be a very depressing season, the Los Angeles Lakers keep adding pieces to answer a huge problem that affected them last season: Depth and injury-insurance, especially when it comes to the forward position, and are looking into the option of signing Austin Daye.
The thinnest position right now on the Lakers’ roster is the small forward spot, with Wesley Johnson and Nick Young looking like the players who’ll start (one of them, of course) at the position, while recently signed Elias Harris, coming out of Gonzaga, will also try and win some minutes. However, both Young and Johnson are more of shooting guards in any case, which means they might need another player, a more natural fit at small forward, to add to the mix.
So far, the talks between the Lakers and Austin Daye haven’t gotten anywhere. Daye has worked out for the Lakers, but there’s nothing but a minimum contract they can give him. Daye, a slightly disappointing first round pick by the Detroit Pistons in 2009, probably won’t get any better offer: not from the Lakers, not from another team, but it might be about the number of years.
However, Daye’s agent is Rob Pelinka, who is also Kobe Bryant’s agent, and the one who helped broker the deals this offseason with Chris Kaman and Wesley Johsnon, making it seem a lot more likely that Daye and the Lakers will find common ground.
Daye was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies from the Detroit Pistons last season, becoming even less of a factor for Memphis than he was in Detroit, averaging 10 minutes a night in Memphis, scoring 4 points per game and hardly being involved in the playoff effort.
Daye is a stretch ‘4’ type of player who has been in the small forward position for most of his career, not impressing too much in any of the forward spots. However, the Lakers want to add as many pieces as possible to any of their three frontcourt positions, and Daye brings them a shooting ability they don’t have from any of their bigs at the moment.