Hello, Lakers Nation. Welcome into the Lakers Nation.com podcast. My name's Trevor Lane.

Got a big free agent update today, including the Lakers' own free agents, as well as a potential

target of theirs. Let's dive right into it. Let's start with Marcus Smart, who has a player

option that he is widely expected to decline. According to Jake Fisher on the Steinlein substack, did note that the Houston Rockets

are potentially going to pursue Marcus Smart in an attempt to bring him away from the Los Angeles

Lakers, which is incredibly ironic and a little bit hilarious. Check this out. So the Lakers last

year had a veteran, free agent,

defensive player in Dorian Finney Smith that the Houston Rockets poached from the Lakers

signed into a new deal and it's been a disaster. How much of a disaster was Dorian Finney

Smith with the Houston Rockets? And it's not all the DFS. He was very injured.

But how bad has it been? It's been so bad that according to Jake Fisher, the Rockets are exploring the trade market to try to move on from Dorian Finney Smith and his contract. So think

about that. How bad it had to be with DFS. The Rockets heavily protected themselves

from DFS in terms of age, injury, all of that by giving

him what I thought was a very, very smart contract. You look at what they did with this deal,

a four-year deal, but the third and fourth year, not guaranteed. Zero dollars guaranteed in the

third year. It's a player option and non-guaranteed fourth year of that deal. So the Rockets are really only on the hook for two years. That's not that big of a deal. 13.3 million left on the contract for one year remaining. That's it. And then they can get out of it for $0. That's not bad. But that tells you how bad Dororeen Finney Smith was for the Houston Rockets,

that they're at a point where they are trying to get out of the deal right now.

And it makes it all the more ironic that they would turn around the very next summer

and try to do the same thing by pursuing Marcus Smart.

But here we are, the Houston Rockets, once again, a free agent destination for Marcus Smart looking to take him away from the Los Angeles Lakers.

Again, he is expected to decline that $5.4 million player option before the deadline coming up on Monday.

So June 29th is the deadline for Marcus Smart to decide on his player option.

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