When NBA free agency began last week, one player that seemingly got forgotten by many teams was Los Angeles Lakers point guard Dennis Schroder.
The Lakers acquired Schroder in a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder in hopes of bringing in another ballhandling playmaker to take the load off LeBron James.
Schroder had an up-and-down first season with the team though, notably turning down a four-year, $84 million extension and then playing poorly in the Lakers’ first-round postseason loss to the Phoenix Suns.
It would appear that turning down that extension wasn’t a smart decision as the Lakers quickly moved on this summer by completing a blockbuster trade for Russell Westbrook to replace Schroder at point guard.
Cap space quickly dried up across the league, not leaving Schroder many options. One team he has been linked to is the Boston Celtics though, and it looks like that is where he’s headed after all. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Schroder is signing a one-year contract with the Celtics:
Deal will be for the $5.9M exception, per source.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 10, 2021
Schroder then took to Instagram to announce the signing himself, posting an image of himself in a Celtics uniform on his story.
This is obviously a lot less money than Schroder was hoping for, although it gives him an opportunity to repair his image a bit in Boston for one year before hitting free agency again this summer.
As far as the Lakers are concerned, losing Schroder for nothing is bad asset management considering they gave up Danny Green and a first-round pick to acquire him last offseason and held his full bird rights.
It became clear early on though that he would not be returning, and now he will officially get a fresh start with the Lakers’ biggest rivals.
Westbrook excited to play in hometown
The Lakers moved on from Schroder a long time ago, with the aforementioned Westbrook replacing him at point guard. The Lakers introduced Westbrook in a press conference on Tuesday and he expressed excitement to be playing for his hometown team.
“First, it’s surreal,” Westbrook said. “I think it hasn’t kind of hit me yet being from L.A. Growing up not too far from here. Being able to watch the parades. Try to miss school to go to them being a Laker fan and being from L.A., but now everything coming full circle for me is a blessing.
“There’s a lot of things I can’t put into actual words because some of these things don’t come true for people like myself. I’m truly blessed and thankful for this opportunity and I can’t wait to get started.”
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