Lakers reportedly met with Dillon Brooks in free agency
After an infamous meltdown in the playoffs with the Grizzlies, Dillon Brooks reportedly met with the Lakers in free agency this summer.
Dillon Brooks will forever be tied to LeBron James and the Lakers for all of the wrong reasons. Few players in the history of the NBA have stuck their foot in their mouth to the degree that Brooks did this postseason.
After plummeting out of the playoffs, Brooks was basically immediately banished from the Grizzlies and entered uncertainty in free agency. Eventually, he was given a rather absurd contract by the Houston Rockets in free agency.
Many asked who the Rockets were bidding against to pay a pretty penny for Brooks. Interestingly, and quite surprisingly, the Lakers may have been one of those teams.
According to Kelly Iko of The Athletic, the Lakers met with Dillon Brooks this offseason but a deal, obviously, never came about.
To my knowledge, the Dallas Mavericks were said to be seriously in the mix for Brooks’ services. Milwaukee was also keeping close tabs on the situation on the off chance Khris Middleton took his talents elsewhere. Brooks also met with the Lakers, but there was no smooth pathway to acquiring him given their cap situation, unless the Lakers were prepared to go down the complex sign-and-trade path that Houston did.
The Lakers’ only real path of signing Brooks was via the mid-level exception that would have been in the neighborhood of $11-12 million. Comparatively, Brooks eventually signed a deal worth $90 million over four years and you don’t have to be a math wiz to know that’s more than $12 million annually.
Brooks would have made some sense in theory as a wing for the Lakers. He is an elite defender of wings, as evidenced by him making the All-Defense team last season.
It’s just, like, everything else he struggles with. It wasn’t just the fact he missed shots against the Lakers in the playoffs, for example, it was that he kept shooting bad ones. And that would have been a tough adjustment for the Lakers to make.
Perhaps it could have been akin to Matt Barnes or Ron Artest joining the Lakers after duels with Kobe Bryant. Their duels weren’t quite as...bombastic as Brooks’ was.
Would you have supported Brooks on the Lakers for the MLE this summer? Let us know in the comments below.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.