Los Angeles is bringing back a veteran wing.
Metta World Peace’s long-term goal of one day owning the Lakers took another step forward Wednesday morning, as he and the Lakers agreed to a (read: somehow, yet another) deal. This allows everyone in Lakers social media the opportunity to freak out about someone who, supposing he even makes the team, while see very few minutes throughout the season.
My advice: wait until we get the parameters of the contract before we doom it and everyone involved.
Now, the fair criticism of this and the Yi Jianlian deal, regardless of contract structure is whether the organization would be better off bringing in younger guys with more upside versus guys at the very end of their career.
Where I wouldn’t necessarily follow said criticism is when it becomes a concern about those two “stealing” minutes away from the young guys. Under the previous regime, sure, the more veterans meant more opportunity for Byron to ride with his antiquated I’ll-show-you style of coaching kids. Let’s wait and see how Luke handles the situation before, again, damning this kind of signing.
Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports broke the news.
"Shams Charania ✔ @ShamsCharania
Metta World Peace has reached agreement on a deal to re-sign with the Los Angeles Lakers, league sources tell The Vertical.
2:09 AM - 22 Sep 2016"
Metta brings the Lakers’ total number of players heading into training camp to 19, so spots on the roster are going to be hard to come by. This news couldn’t have felt great to Anthony Brown or Nick Young, as both were already on the bubble to make the team, let alone the rotation.
Giving World Peace a chance doesn’t seem to make much sense as of now, but it also can’t seem to hurt long-term.