LA Lakers early priorities explained heading into 2025 off-season, extensions and free agency plans

LA Lakers early priorities

The Lakers are known massive buyers. And the reason behind their success and stand as one of the most decorated NBA franchises is their ability to attract top talents.

Regardless of what might happen for their season with Doncic and James at their side, general manager Rob Pelinka is pretty much guaranteed to show aggressiveness this upcoming offseason, in order to enhance their competitive odds moving ahead.

The franchise has plenty of offseason duties to pursue, but one thing that they are expected to tackle has been their glaring void at the center spot according to Jovan Buha of The Athletic.

“It’s a little bit too early but I think tentatively, the plan is to add another center, whether it’s a starting center or a backup center,” the Lakers reporter said on his Buha’s Block podcast.

“Maybe you move Jaxson [Hayes] to the bench and get a better starting center, or maybe it’s just someone behind him.”

Due to the Mark Williams trade which they cancelled after the Charlotte Hornets center showed an undisclosed medical problem, the Lakers are considerably short-handed in terms of their frontcourt depth upon Anthony Davis’ departure to the Dallas Mavericks.

Only Jaxson Hayes fits as a standard big that the Lakers have. Beyond the former No. 8 overall pick, LA presents underwhelming and unproven center backups from Trey Jemison and Christian Koloko.

Alex Len, the team’s midseason emergency big signing after the botched Williams trade, has been majorly disappointing in his run sofar with the purple and gold, enduring backlash amongst Lakers fans for the past couple of games.

Lakers will also look to retain main core for the next couple of years

Beyond addressing their center needs, the Lakers are also about to face important matters in maintaining their main core.

As he is now ineligible to obtain a five-year, $345 million supermax deal upon being traded, Doncic shifts his focus for a renewed contract which the Lakers can offer. Meanwhile, James could opt out of his 2025-26 player option and seek a new deal of his own.

Beyond Doncic and James, Austin Reaves will also be in line for an extension. Ace defender Dorian Finney-Smith, who has been the team’s midseason X-factor, is expected to become a free agent as he holds a $15.3m player option for next season.

“I think that the priorities are going to be trying to get Luka [Doncic] to sign the extension, trying to get Austin [Reaves] to sign an extension, which I don’t think he will sign. Figuring out the LeBron [James] situation, figuring out DFS [Dorian Finney-Smith],” Buha added.

“I think it’s it’s more so like retaining some of the internal key pieces that are going to be free agents or extension eligible and then also seeing the trade market what you can get.”

For now, the Lakers can only put all of these aside as the ending of their current NBA season will strongly dictate how their summer will go through.