5:44pm: The signing is official, Mike Bresnahan of Spectrum SportsNet tweets. Williams will be available to play tonight.
7:54am: The Lakers are adding another former lottery pick to their roster, according to Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports, who reports that free agent forward Derrick Williams is signing a 10-day contract with the club. No corresponding move will be necessary — the Lakers have 13 players on guaranteed contracts, plus Travis Wear on a 10-day deal, leaving one open roster spot.
Williams, the second overall pick in the 2011 draft, has yet to play an NBA game this season. After playing for the Heat and Cavaliers in 2016/17, Williams went unsigned on the NBA free agent market and eventually headed to China to join the Tianjin Gold Lions. In 15 games in China, Williams posted 20.0 PPG and 6.6 RPG.
Before heading overseas to continue his career, the 26-year-old had appeared in 426 NBA regular season games, averaging 8.9 PPG and 4.0 RPG for the Timberwolves, Kings, Knicks, Heat, and Cavs. Although he has at times shown that he’s capable of being a solid rotation piece, Williams has never developed into the impact player Minnesota hoped for when the team drafted him one spot after Kyrie Irving seven years ago.
It remains to be seen whether Williams will get a chance to play regular minutes with the Lakers, but he’ll at least provide some frontcourt depth while Brandon Ingram recovers from a groin injury. He’ll be joining a roster littered with former lottery picks like himself — Williams will become the eighth current Laker who was a top-10 draft pick, and the third who was a No. 2 overall selection.
We need shooting…
Eighth top 10 pick on the team and they are not even in the playoffs. How exactly is tanking supposed to help? Even if you don’t count Williams, it is still 7 high draft picks that aren’t winning together. Are you just supposed to lose until you get lucky and have a couple of picks work out? And then hope a free agent like LeBron or Durant deem you worthy of joining? Is that “the process?”
You realize that includes KCP, Luol Deng, Brook Lopez, and Channing Frye, right? 2 average players and 2 guys who haven’t seen the floor. There are only 3 picks that are actually theirs.
How does it matter whose pick they are? At one time even KCP, Deng, Lopez, and Frye were thought highly enough of during the draft to be lottery picks. The same type of lottery picks that have yet to be selected. I know everyone likes to think their unused lottery pick will turn into Steph Curry or LeBron, but in actuality that pick is far more likely to turn into a KCP, Lopez, Deng, Frye, or Derrick Williams than that. That is why tanking makes little sense because the draft is all luck anyway. And it will be even more luck if they start drafting high school players again.
Bruh! Remember the old regime Jim bust and Mitch kupchoke. Give magic a chance.
My argument is not a shot at the Lakers. It is a shot at tanking in general.
Yeah tanking didn’t work for the thunder when they got Durant/Westbrook/Harden or for the Sixers when they got Embiid/Simmons/Saric/Fultz when he gets healthy or the wizards with Wall/Beal/Porter or the Cavs when their picks were #s 1,4,1,1 in 4 straight drafts which essentially turned into Kyrie and and a bunch of pieces to entice LeBron to come back and trade for Love. I
If you’re not going to make the playoffs doesn’t getting the best player possible coming into league for a cheap contract (that could become the next all star) not sound like a good idea? You can’t just afford to get good players because you want to
Can’t believe he’s only 26. Feels like he’s been in the league forever
That’s because he has been so painful to watch. If you drill into your hand for 30 seconds, it will feel like forever.
He’s a game changer.