With Cole Swider Angling For Standard Roster Spot, Did Lakers Give Up Too Soon?

A potential missed opportunity?

Former Syracuse wing Cole Swider, whom your Lakers signed to a two-way contract as an undrafted free agent prior to the start of last season, is now making headlines with the Miami Heat.

Swider signed an Exhibit 10 Contract with the Heat back in August, which is defined per the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement as "a mechanism for teams to bring in players to compete in training camp. They function as one-year minimum contracts, bust most of the contract is non-guaranteed."

Essentially, Swider has been gifted with a trial run to compete for a roster spot with Miami, and in accordance with his performance at camp and into the preseason, the Heat will decide whether or not they'd like to offer him a fully-guaranteed contract.

Importantly, thus far in the preseason, Swider has made an impact. At the time of this being written, he's played two games, where he scored 17 points and 11 points, respectively, shooting 38% from 3 on 21 attempts.

Clearly, Swider has the green light in South Beach, launching threes at any opportunity.

Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports:

The two ways....would be...[Jamal] Cain, [RJ] Hampton, and Cole Swider, if he would be willing to accept a two-way deal."

Evidently, the Heat are big fans of Swider, as he would join the arsenal of undrafted sharpshooters they bring to the table every season, along with names of the past like Max Strus, Duncan Robinson, and new Laker Gabe Vincent.

With the Heat having such a keen eye for talent, it begs the question of if the Lakers potentially gave up too soon with Swider. Should they have retained him? Let's dive in.

Short answer: probably not.

While Swider is definitely a gifted shooter, there's no real guarantee of his capabilities elsewhere on the floor. He struggles as a defender and isn't much of a self-creator limiting his offensive role to exclusively spotting up to shoot. While that definitely adds value in its own regard, the Lakers' identity is defense, and Swider not being an adequate fit for that emphasis likely outweighs his shooting capability.

Separately, he struggled last season. Albeit in limited minutes, Swider put up 1.3 points per game on 33% shooting from the field, and 37.5% from 3-point range. With the Lakers looking to win now, it's hard to retain a player that you aren't confident will add immediate value.

Long answer: time will tell.

Different take different amounts of time to develop in the league, and for a player like Swider, finding his shot at the NBA level could've/can take(n) anywhere from a few games to a few years, as we've seen across different elite shooters in the league. It's hard for the Lakers to have considered him properly evaluated, as him only playing 5.9 minutes per game in his time in Los Angeles last season indubitably curtailed both his growth and in-game exposure to the organization.

The Heat are phenomenal at capitalizing on players' talent, and so the odds that they can transform him into a valuable rotation piece are high. To that end, the Lakers can't guarantee that they would've made the most of Swider either, meaning that even if he proves to be a high-end option in Miami, it's difficult to feel guilty about letting him walk.

One way or another, evaluating talent is difficult, and the Lakers are a win-now team with a ton of it. Losing Swider could be costly, but there's no guarantee that he would've been what the Lakers needed, or what he's capable of being at his ceiling in Los Angeles.

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