The Los Angeles Lakers NBA free agency period was quite fruitful for the team. General manager Rob Pelinka retained several key players, signed some new ones, and generally made the team a little bit stronger than last season when the Lakers made it to the Western Conference Finals. Now, with NBA free agency winding down and just a handful of players still on the market, there is a Lakers free agent out there worth targeting in the bargain bin, and his name is Boban Marjanovic.
The bargain-bin Lakers free agent target should be center Boban Marjanovic
Lakers' free agency was good for the team. The goal was to stay as strong as possible and get better where they could to make one last run at a title with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. To do that, the first step was to retain their own free agents.
Pelinka did a solid job of this, bringing back Austin Reaves for the bargain price of four years, $56.2 million, and getting Rui Hachimura for three years and $51 million. LA also re-signed D’Angelo Russell for two years, $37 million. That last one may be a bit much — especially with rookie Jordan Hood-Schifino looking good in Summer League — but that’s the going rate, and it will be a tradeable contract down the line.
The Lakers didn’t just look internally, though. They brought in quite a few solid to excellent free agents from the outside during the first few days of 2023 NBA free agency.
Pelinka’s four outside free agent deals included point guard Gabe Vincent (three years, $33 million), forward Taurean Prince (one year, $4.5 million), center Jaxson Hayes (two years, $4.6 million), and wing Cam Reddish (two years, $4.6 million).
Adding these players to James, Davis, Max Christie, Jarred Vanderbilt, Hood-Schifino, and second-round rookie Maxwell Lewis gives the Lakers a pretty full and set roster heading into the 2023-24 NBA season.
However, there is a bargain-bin Lakers free agent target the team should sign for reasons both on and off the court.
That player is 7-foo-3 center Boban Marjanovic. Simply known as Boban in most NBA circles, the soon-to-be 35-year-old Serbian big man is a player who will sign for a league-minimum deal and help fill out the back end of the bench. He will have some significant value, though.
Boban is a big, slow, offensively skilled big with defensive shortcomings. He’s played 317 games in eight NBA seasons, starting just 25 and averaging 8.9 minutes per game in his career. His other averages are 5.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 0.3 blocks per game. In short, Boban isn’t swinging the balance of the Western Conference, at least on the floor.
In the end, Boban will only play against certain teams and in short spells, but he does have significant value in the modern NBA. After years of getting smaller and faster — helping make Marjanovic more irrelevant — the league is now getting bigger again. Players like Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic and winning MVP Awards, and the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft was 7-foot-5 Frenchman Victor Wembanyama.
Boban’s biggest value to the Lakers in 2023-24 will be his six fouls. If he can play his eight to 10 minutes against the best bigs in the league, lean on them, hack them, and maybe even make them work a bit on defense, that will be a huge help to the Lakers.
That will help the team overall and help Davis and Hayes stay a little fresher and out of foul trouble. That’s how Boban helps on the court. His biggest value is off the court, though.
Boban is quite possibly the best vibes guy in the league. His teammates, coaches, and fans absolutely love him. Marjanovic’s former Rockets teammate, Jabari Smith Jr., named Boban his favorite teammate of all time. And his former Philadelphia 76ers teammate Tobias Harris called the big Serbian “the greatest human being you will ever meet.”
Playing for the famed Los Angeles Lakers with the legendary LeBron James in his final seasons can’t be easy. There is a lot of pressure and a lot of outside nonsense to deal with. That’s why — in all seriousness — adding a locker room gem like Boban is the smartest Lakers free agency move at this point. Basketball is just as mental as it is physical, and adding Boban will help the team stay loose and positive as the trials and tribulations of the 2023-24 campaign come.
Plus, Boban needs to be in LA! He’s amazing in commercials, and this summer, he is playing a hitman in a movie called Verified Target to add to his growing list of movie credits. All that is why Boban Marjanovic as the final Lakers free agent target makes so much sense.
Follow Us
Subscribe