Lakers Guard Listed as Top 25 Free Agent by NBA Expert
The Lakers front office swung and missed on almost every veteran minimum signing last summer. Aged veterans like DeAndre Jordan, Wayne Ellington, and Kent Bazemore, just to name a few, were complete liabilities on the court. The lone bright spot, besides first-half-of-the-season Carmelo Anthony, was Malik Monk.
The former 2017 lottery pick posted a career high in points per game (13.8) and shot the ball efficiently from three-point range (39.1%). After betting on himself, it is time for Monk to cash in this summer in free agency.
John Hollinger of The Athletic rolled out his top 25 free agent list, based on his proprietary metric (BORD$), this summer and slotted Monk in at number 14. Monk's gambit was not overlooked by Hollinger.
"A year later, he is one of the rare free agents who is both young and unrestricted; he’s only 24. He also comes off consecutive years where he shot 40.1 percent and 39.1 percent from 3, and last season he was far more efficient inside the arc (56.8 percent on 2s!) than he’d ever been before."
The basketball guru even went as far to label Monk as a "real sleeper" this free agency.
"That said, one can fairly wonder if this BORD$ valuation is influenced a little too heavily by Monk’s sterling on-off differential for the Lakers last season. Monk is undersized for a two, can’t play point and, although he improved last year, still struggles on defense. All of that is perhaps a reason to keep an MLE [mid-level exception] lid on his free-agent offers. But in a league increasingly tilted toward offense, he’s one of the real sleepers in free agency, especially since there may be further scoring upside to tap."
That's great news for Monk, and bad news for a Lakers team that might not be able to retain one of their few promising young players. Despite the fact that vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka previously noted that Monk is a player they "see as hopefully a part of our future".
The Lakers only have the taxpayer mid-level exception ($6.4M) available this offseason and from what it sounds like, Monk is worth much more than that.
