Ziaire Williams To Sign One-Year Contract With Lakers

Williams has spent the past two seasons in Brooklyn following a three-year run in Memphis. He’s entering his sixth season in the NBA.

It appears as though the $3MM figure Charania cited is rounded up somewhat. After using all their cap room on Walker Kessler, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Quentin Grimes and then signing Collin Sexton using the room exception, the Lakers can only offer the veteran’s minimum. For Williams, that would work out to $2,845,883, while Los Angeles will carry a $2,449,421 cap hit.

The Pelicans were also interested in signing Williams, who was selected 10th overall in the 2021 draft, per Dan Woike of The Athletic (Twitter link). However, the California native preferred to play closer to home, and Williams also wanted to be in a “winning situation,” Woike adds.

Williams, who played high school basketball with Bronny James at Sierra Canyon, averaged 10.2 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.4 steals in 22.9 minutes per game across 56 appearances in 2025/26 with the Nets. His shooting slash line was .425/.343/.850.

While Williams has been pretty erratic on offense to this point in his career (.422/.322/.824 shooting splits in 269 games), he provides plus length for a small forward at 6’9″ and developed into a solid defender with the Nets.

Brooklyn declined its $6.25MM option on Williams at the end of June, making him an unrestricted free agent. Woike subsequently linked the 24-year-old to the Lakers.

According to Charania (Twitter link), the Lakers continue to “strongly pursue” Jonathan Kuminga, whom the team views as a potential starter at forward. Woike suggests (via Twitter) Williams’ addition wouldn’t preclude the team from making a run at Kuminga, though the club has limited financial flexibility barring a sign-and-trade deal.

As Dave McMenamin of ESPN tweets, Williams will be the 15th player under standard contract with the Lakers. The team also has all three of its two-way slots filled, notes Law Murray of The Athletic (via Twitter).

In other Lakers news, Jovan Buha reports that Austin Reaves‘ new four-year contract actually came in slightly lower than anticipated (Twitter link). Rather than signing a full max deal worth about $185MM, Reaves’ contract came in at $180MM, giving the team a little bit more financial flexibility in future seasons.

McMenamin (Twitter link) confirms Buha’s reporting and says the marginal discount could enable to the Lakers to use the non-taxpayer mid-level exception in the 2027 offseason. ESPN’s Bobby Marks adds (via Twitter) that Reaves will earn the full $41.2MM max in 2026/27, but he received a 4% raise in year two rather than the maximum allowable 8%. Next season’s cap is projected to rise by 5.5%.