In addition to adding Deandre Ayton to the fold and re-signing Jaxson Hayes, the Los Angeles Lakers elected to bring former Memphis Grizzlies and Sacramento Kings forward Jake LaRavia on board this summer.
Even though the Wake Forest product is a serviceable floor spacer who shot 42.3% from deep last season, Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rohrbach disagrees with the Lakers’ decision to sign him to a two-year, $12 million deal.
For that reason, Rohrbach named LaRavia’s contract as one of the worst of the summer (No. 6 on the top-7 list).
“Jake LaRavia is fine,” Rohrbach wrote Tuesday. “ He was thrown in as salary filler at the deadline to a three-team trade involving the Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings and Washington Wizards, and none of those teams — all of which could have used a value added — preferred to keep him.”
“That should tell us something right off the bat. It did not tell the Lakers anything, though, as they made LaRavia their first priority, agreeing to terms with him in the moments after the free-agency window opened.”
“LaRavia is making short money, and for that his cannot be a terrible contract. But it can be a questionable one. You are telling me the Los Angeles Lakers — the league's premier franchise — could not convince anyone else to accept a $6 million salary from them?”
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“How much more valuable is LaRavia than, say, Tim Hardaway Jr., who took a veteran's minimum contract to play for the Denver Nuggets?”
To Rohrbach’s point, it’s astonishing that the Lakers settled for LaRavia to begin the 2025 offseason.
Granted, there aren’t a ton of impactful two-way wings available on the free agency market, but the former first-round pick isn’t an asset that will turn heads instantly.
Rohrbach wisely mentioned Tim Hardaway Jr. during his spiel about LaRavia. The 33-year-old recently signed a one-year, $3 million contract with the Nuggets.
As a battle-tested veteran with 48 games of playoff experience and the ability to serve as a dependable 10+ points per game perimeter scoring threat, it’s reasonable to assume a contributor of his caliber would have moved the needle for Lakers fans more than LaRavia (who’s a career 6.9 points per game scorer).
Still, if LaRavia proves he’s far from a liability in a Lakers uniform, he could surprisingly become an underrated weapon alongside Luka Doncic and LeBron James in Los Angeles next season.
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