Lakers News: NBA Insider Optimistic About LA's Free Agent Signings

ESPN's Dave McMenamin was complimentary of the Lakers free agent signings and thinks it should help LA in a department they struggled in last year.

Predictably, the Lakers didn't wrangle in any big names in free agency. It's not a surprise considering they only had $6.4M and veteran exceptions to offer, but that didn't stop scores of Lakers fans from voicing their displeasure with the signings of Troy Brown Jr., Damian Jones, Juan Toscano-Anderson, and Lonnie Walker IV.

Nonetheless, ESPN's Dave McMenamin offered a sliver of hope for disappointed Lakers fans.

"This first wave of names aren't going to bowl you over. Damian Jones, Troy Brown Jr., Lonnie Walker IV, but these are young, switchable defenders, they will be able to bring a degree of athleticism they were missing from those types of role players last year."

Last summer, the Lakers did the opposite of what they did on Thursday. They signed a flock of aging veterans who, for the most part, had little interest in playing defense and were well past their primes. And that's putting it nicely.

The quartet of names LA signed will hopefully lend themselves to head coach Darvin Ham's number one priority: improving the Lakers defense.

Naturally, McMenamin had to bring up the elephant in the room - the Lakers pursuit of All-Star guard Kyrie Irving.

"The next step, in what could be a five step process this offseason for this Lakers team is shooting. They believe they can find shooting via trade, Kyrie Irving would be the number one target."

At the moment, there haven't been any confirmed reports of what the Lakers could be potentially offering the Nets in a trade for Kyrie, but there's many months remaining in the NBA offseason.