Lakers News: Reporter Theorizes Why LA Overpaid For 2 Free Agents

Could they have a Plan B in place?

The Los Angeles Lakers were not able to trade for superstar point guard and former champion Kyrie Irving at the 2022-2023 trade deadline and that made things extremely hard for them to even have a shot at signing him during free agency.

Seeing that he signed a three-year deal to return to the Dallas Mavericks worth $126 million, it appears that that ship has failed for the Lakers... or has it?

Immediately when the news broke that D'Angelo Russell agreed to his own two-year deal with the Los Angeles Lakers for $37 million with a team option in the second year, that was tagged as a contract that could easily be traded in a few months if LA was not happy with his early season play. Seeing that he underperformed when things mattered most in the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets, his value dropped significantly and now he will have to prove himself again to the organization.

D’Angelo Russell is currently holding a game at his camp in Louisville with Devin Booker and Obi Toppin

For a city that doesn’t have an NBA team awesome for the kids to see these guys up close pic.twitter.com/y07zv3fDpv

— Ben Stinar (@BenStinar) June 30, 2023

But longtime basketball expert Bill Simmons has a very interesting theory as to why Russell's deal was closer to $40 million that we initially thought and why Rui Hachimura got a nice payday as well.

"I couldn't help but notice that if you add up D'Angelo Russell's deal and Rui Hachimura's deal," said Simmons. "It works in the trade machine with Kyrie around the December,January range... just putting that out there. The Russell deal being abnormally high, I think we can all agree that the two for 37 for a guy who couldn't make a shot that entire Denver series, it's a little rich."(Via Bill Simmons Podcast)

Obviously this is just a fun theory but there is still one way Kyrie could find his way to Laker Land. Let's also not forget Russell's promise that a training camp will bring the best out of this group so we'll have to see how they start off!