Los Angeles Lakers Re-Sign Top Backup From Last Year

The Los Angeles Lakers added a few great players to their roster.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski confirmed that the Lakers re-signed Alex Caruso to a two-year deal worth $5 million. In the final 18 games of the regular season, Alex Caruso was great. He averaged 12.4 points, 4.2 assists and 3.7 assists and 3.7 rebounds per night while offering the best defense of the entire roster. Caruso’s energy was infectious. Despite having most of his minutes on an injury-ravaged roster, the Los Angeles Lakers outscored their opponents by 3.3 points per 100 possessions when Caruso was on the floor. That’s a better figure than LeBron James had.

We’re not trying to say that Caruso is better than the king of basketball. But nothing beats the fact that the Lakers were much better when Caruso was on the floor. He doesn’t have a selfish bone in the body, but was able to shoot 46.7 percent from three-point range. Caruso is more athletic than he appears, and he should never play a game in the G-League. Caruso is definitely an NBA player and he is actually a good one. Had he played this way for an entire season, he’d be receiving a better deal than this one. Well, this doesn’t change the fact that Caruso will be playing in the NBA next season.

The Lakers made a big move prior to the NBA Draft when they traded many players away just to get Anthony Davis. The team was left with LeBron James, Kyle Kuzma and Davis. The team has always been interested in gathering as much star power as possible and they tried to get Kawhi Leonard. However, Leonard signed a deal with the Los Angeles Clippers. That’s why the Lakers decided to turn their efforts in a different direction.

The Lakers need to finish their roster. Of course, they have limited financial resources to do this, but they wanted starters at both guard spots and an entire bench. Rob Pelinka will have to prove his power to assemble an entire roster. The front office wasn’t really successful last season, and the team missed the playoffs.