Lakers News: Jarred Vanderbilt Signs Pricey Extension To Stay In LA

The Lakers are betting big on their incumbent power forward.

Your Los Angeles Lakers may have just made their dumbest deal of the summer.

Following a fairly solid offseason that included totally revamping their frontcourt around stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the team has weirdly decided to unnecessarily extend power forward Jarred Vanderbilt, whose role in the rotation looked to be fairly up-in-the-air after he became the forgotten man in this spring's playoffs. 

Klutch Sports CEO/LeBron James pal Rich Paul and Vanderbilt's agent Erik Ruiz inform Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium that the 6'9" vet is signing a fully-guaranteed four-year, $48 million contract extension to stay in Los Angeles. The contract includes a player option for its fourth season, in 2027-28.

The 24-year-old is on the last year of his current three-year deal, and will be earning $4.6 million this season. 

The Lakers clearly value what the versatile Vanderbilt contributed defensively during the 2022-23 regular season when he arrived in LA at the trade deadline. 

It's worth noting that he was more or less played off the floor in the postseason and was eventually (too late) replaced by Rui Hachimura in the Lakers' starting lineup. During LA's run to the 2023 playoffs, he saw his minutes on the team slashed from 24 to 16.5. Across his 15 playoff games (13 starts), he averaged 4.6 points on 40% field goal shooting, 3.2 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 0.8 blocks and 0.7 steals a night. But during the lone game Hachimura started in Vanderbilt's stead, Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets, Vanderbilt didn't even play. It was the team's closest loss of the playoffs.

Los Angeles re-signed Hachimura to a three-year, $51 million deal this summer, added combo forward Taurean Prince on a below-market deal, brought in power forward/center Christian Wood on a veteran's minimum (a massive dip from Wood's $14.3 million salary on the Dallas Mavericks last season), and took minimum flyers on forward Cam Reddish and center Jaxson Hayes.

So did LA really need to do this deal now? Why not wait until next summer and see how Vanderbilt integrates into the roster this year, considering he was so useless later in the playoffs?

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