Last December, the Los Angeles Lakers decided to make a mid-season trade to acquire Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton from the Brooklyn Nets for D’Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis and three second round picks.
After not making a single new acquisition in the summer of 2024, L.A. decided to wait until the time was right to make a move. That trade would be the first domino to fall as Finney-Smith brought a much needed defensive intensity. Meanwhile, Milton was seen as a throw-in and his immediate impact was a bit up in the air when arriving to the Lakers.
Gabe Vincent was streaky at points through the regular season, but head coach JJ Redick showed a reliance on Vincent and did not tend to dive deep into his guard rotation. As a seven-year veteran, Milton has struggled to find a home after spending five seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers early in his career.
There were flashes of the 6’5″ guard showing an ability to be a bit of a scoring punch with a bit of playmaking, but his defensive concerns and slow footed natured hampered his chances at rotation minutes. Milton appeared in 30 games, starting one of them for L.A. and averaged 3.9 points, 1.8 rebounds and 1.3 assists on 43.3% from the field and 29.4% from 3-point range.
2024-25 Highlight
In totality, Milton’s best game as a Laker came on Jan. 30 against the Washington Wizards as he dropped 21 points on 7-for-8 from the floor. That’s in addition to four rebounds, four assists and two steals. A performance like that showcases that the SMU product can play in the NBA.
Milton’s strength is scoring and is best utilized as a bench scorer, which was the case in two more games when he dropped 16 points apiece. However, L.A. had enough scoring in Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura so in a way, Redick needed role players to play defense and do the little things.
2025-26 Outlook
The writing was on the wall after last season concluded that Milton was most likely going to be waived from his non-guaranteed contract. The Lakers needed to open up roster spots and salary cap space, so they did indeed waive Milton before his contract became guaranteed after being unable to trade him.
Although he was cut from the Lakers, it did not take long for Milton to find a new basketball home as the 28-year-old guard signed with international club KK Partizan, which is located in Serbia.
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