FEBRUARY 24: The Lakers have officially released Cook, the team announced today in a press release. He’s now on track to clear waivers on Friday, while L.A. will carry a cap hit of about $797K if he goes unclaimed.
FEBRUARY 23: The Lakers are waiving veteran guard Quinn Cook, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). The move will leave the team with a pair of open spots on its 15-man roster.
Cook, who will turn 28 in a month, averaged 11.5 minutes per game in 44 regular season games for the Lakers last season, but has played even less of a role in 2020/21, logging just 62 total minutes in 16 appearances. He has played double-digit minutes just once.
As Charania explains (via Twitter), the Lakers valued Cook, but wanted to gain some extra roster and cap flexibility for possible upcoming moves, and his non-guaranteed contract made him the obvious roster casualty. Wednesday is the deadline for teams to waive a player on a non-guaranteed deal and avoid paying them his full-season salary.
Assuming Cook is officially released on Tuesday, his cap hit will dip from $1.62MM to about $785K, creating a little extra breathing room below the hard cap for Los Angeles. The Lakers will have up to two weeks to fill at least one of their two open roster spots to get back to the league-mandated minimum of 14 players on standard contracts, but could do so temporarily with a 10-day signing.
With two open roster spots, the Lakers will have some options on the trade market, but may ultimately focus on the post-deadline buyout market, as the defending champs will be a compelling destination for the top players who reach free agency.
Cook, meanwhile, would clear waivers and become an unrestricted free agent on Thursday if he goes unclaimed. According to Charania, the former Duke standout is expected to draw some interest around the league.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Orlando
The G-League Bubble…
They probably will sign Cousins or they will be making a trade for someone like Drummond.
They bringing back JR Smith?
God no
I doubt it. Looks like Cousins just got waived. I bet they sign him.
Too many Cooks in the kitchen
But Jared Dudley stays on the roster? I’m seriously questioning vogel as the coach.. keeps playing the same players over and over and they aren’t getting the job done.. Wes mathews? How about giving McKinnie some run?
Lol Vogel just helped them win a championship within the last like 6 months chill out
Yes.. with AD AND LEBRON.. not too difficult.. I’m seeing a stagnant offense, very little defensive intensity.. too many drives to lane for uncontested layups.. too many switches on defense leaving shooters wide open and mostly seeing uncontested 3’s all game long by opposing team.. this has been a problem all season.. plus rotations are horrendous.
Dude they are mentally fryed, except Lebron whoes just a different kind of beast-
Lay off Vogel, hes great, my goodness
Dudley? The 13th man is the problem….cmon now
Dudleys there to lay wood as a personal (cheap) bodyguard for LBJ/AD….these guys were commonplace in the 80’s 90’s and even early 00’s . I love it tbh…if we need our 13th guy to perform on the court theres something wrong to begin with
You gotta toughen up man, every team is going to have immense challenges year in year out …its how you respond to adversity in this league not float on puffy clouds …
Now if this was a fan challenge with the same parameters what grade do you think you would receive?
You the type to want to fire a coach every year. Man just won a championship….
Are you watching the games? Makes excuses for short off season.. guess what.. they had 72 days off.. Normal offseason 3 months.. they started 18 days earlier.they also didn’t travel in bubble and played every other day.. not to mention they had couple month lay-off when league was shut down.. offense is 5 guys standing at 3 pt line.. nobody there or rebound.. team isn’t good 3 pt shooting team.. his solution.. take more 3’s.. defense is bad. Very little perimeter defense and zero rim protection.. and team is playing complacent.. that is on coach.. plus running lebron into the ground because his rotations aren’t producing..
Or maybe it’s the fact their 2nd and 3rd best players have been out. Lakers are not judged on meaningless regular season games. We aren’t Utah. They will be fine come postseason.
This was a problem before Ad got hurt and Schroeder out.. they are 4-7 vs teams over 500.. the record doesn’t show how bad they been playing..you think they can just turn it on.. this isn’t the same team or defense.. mcgee, Howard, green and bradley were all defensive minded players.. replaced by Harrell, gasol, Schroeder and Mathews.. all 4 newcomers worse defensively than 4 outgoing.. plus bradley(42%)and green(39%)are better 3 pt shooters then Mathews(35%) and Schroeder (31%).. danny green has the same ppg as Kcp.. he’s just a way better defender than kcp
Lakers 1 is correct here in the problem stretching far beyond AD’s inj-
Outside a 2nd half vs Denver the Lakers had been playing uninspiring ball for about 3 weeks prior… Somehow they would manage 5 or 6 game winning streaks in this time frame, but watching closely you could tell it was all smoke and mirrors
They are, and simply have been, mentally fried …..Only Lebron has been able to cope with it well….
This has been an unprecedented year and the turn over has been pretty substantial…… Get and athletic defensive Center and have the core healthy come playoffs and I still think I like Lebrons chances vs any team in the NBA in a 7 game series. Winning 4 of those series in a row is a whole other topic but if anyone is built to do it its LBJ …… Should be a fun ride, no need to throw spikes on the road right now Lakers 1
lmao the problem for ur team is that gasol is too either too lazy to play defense or just too slow, matthews can’t shoot nothing and cant defend as well, and harrell can dunk and shake the crap out the basket but cant play defense and is undersized, and kuzma sometimes has good nights and sometimes hes just a brickshooter
Yeah McKinnie will certainly turn this ship around
Can t be any worse than what Mathews has been on both sides.. history has been kind to laker reclamation projects.. Trevor Ariza was a journeyman and came to lakers and played well.. Shannon brown as well.. some times you need new blood and give them an opportunity. He’s an athletic 6’8 forward that can play d and can shoot the 3
mckinnie for bamba? who knows wut they’re gonna do
Quinn cook should go to the rockets waive David Nwaba and Rodions Krucus
sure krucus is injured and prob already lost his athleticism but they could also waive a future nba bust in exum who’s always injury prone and has yet to play a single season without missing the entirety of it via buyout cause rockets new backup pg gonna be Kevin porter jr. nwaba is ok cuz he dropped 22 off the bench against the bulls few days ago and still has some talent and good defender
You should be questioning your own Laker fandom. Seems like winning a championship isn’t enough and a little adversity is too much for you. You frequently ask others if they watch the game so did you watch the Lakers for the past 8 years??? Stop whining and enjoy the game you’ll be much better off..
Been a fan since magic played.. I’m not just ok winning games.. it’s about excellence.. I guess you are excited about making the playoffs.. all theses fans saying the lakers are deep and best team.. they have a lot of holes and those holes get exposed during the playoffs. If you don’t recognize the glaring issues of the team then maybe you aren’t watching them.. maybe you are ok with getting to playoffs after many years of below avg.. the players that were brought in are lesser defensive players than they replaced.. that’s a problem.. defense wins rings.. they won last year with their defense and size.. they don’t have that .. lakers defense on pts in paint allowed ranks 23rd.. allowing 50 ppg.. last year they were 7th allowing 44.. huge difference.. teams are shooting effective fg% of 51.4%.. giving up 106 pts a game..
Lakers1, the lakers are fine. They’re just missing AD & Schroder. If they come out of the west, brooklyn will be a tough team for them. 3 against 2!
Obviously Houston rejected the Lakers offer of Quinn Cook for Boogie.
Or the Lakers rejected the Rockets offer. There must be a reason they guaranteed Boogie’s contract before releasing him, most likely to discourage teams from claiming him off waivers. So either LA didn’t want to take the full cap hit for Cousins or he doesn’t want to play alongside LeBron. Take your pick.
The Lakers simply don’t want Cousins because he would not help them. To suggest he doesn’t want to play alongside James is simply hater stupidity, especially considering how supportive he was of the Lakers last season when he knew he couldn’t play. James and Harden are both gone, but your panties are still bunched up over the Lakers rolling over the train wreck that is the Rockets last year.
If he can jump guarding the rim he can help.. gasol just stands there and offers zero rim protection..Harrell gets owned defensively due to him being undersizzed
He was a minimum contract.. they guaranteed his contract to show appreciation for being a professional for the team.
It was pretty well documented why the rockets guaranteed his contract. They did it in good faith. How do you not know this about your own team?
wesley matthews has been doo-doo. trade that dude for something. bleh