NBA Free Agency 2018: 5 offseason targets for the Los Angeles Lakers
By Luke Norris
3. Clint Capela
It’s highly unlikely that Brook Lopez is going to be in a Los Angeles Lakers uniform next season as the guess is he won’t want to take that big of a pay cut. Lopez is a really good player that is going to find someone to pay him but L.A. won’t be that team. He made more than $21 million last season and if he can get that, good for him. So L.A. is going to need a new big man.
DeAndre Jordan and DeMarcus Cousins are names that have been thrown around recently as options but those seem unlikely. For starters, nobody quite knows what Jordan is going to do yet. He has a player option for next season that would pay him $24.1 million but after no talk of an extension, he may choose to walk and there have been reports that he’s wanting to join the Houston Rockets. As for Cousins, that option might have been there if not for that season-ending Achilles injury. That’s a tough one to come back from (just ask Kobe) and if the Lakers are wanting to get back into playoff contention quickly, that’s not the answer.
Enter Clint Capela, the underrated and underappreciated center for the Houston Rockets. Yes, the problem is that he is restricted and the Rockets may not want to let him go but he’s certainly worth a look. Even with all of the three-point shooting and up-and-down play of Houston, Capela still managed to chime in with 13.9 points and 10.8 rebounds per night while shooting 65.2 percent from the floor. He’ll certainly cost more than the $1.515 million that he made last season but Clint Capela would fit in beautifully.