Lakers Interested In Dennis Schröder Reunion

As we remember from last year, Dennis Schröder declined the $84 million contract offered to him by Los Angeles Lakers. He felt he was deserved more. This resulted in the market for Schöder drying up as no team wanted to pay those kinds of amounts. Eventually leading him to sign a mid-level contract with Boston’s Celtics.

Schröder was traded to Houston Rockets on Thursday, but it seems there was another team interested in him. Lakers are trying to get Schröder back as they want to strengthen the point-guard position, The Athletic reported. Not only that but Lakers are even considering signing Schröder if he gets bought out by Houston. As per The Athletic:

The buyout market is still to be determined as teams finalize their rest-of-season plans. But some of the top potential names that could make sense for the Lakers if they’re available include Goran Dragić (who’s expected to end up in Dallas), Gary Harris, Dennis Schröder, Eric Bledsoe, Paul Millsap, DeAndre’ Bembry, Mike Muscala, Tomáš Satoranský and Tristan Thompson.

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The Lakers explored the possibility of trading for Schröder at the trade deadline, as The Athletic’s Bill Oram reported. While there remains some division internally among the Lakers’ decision-makers regarding Schröder after his uncomfortable departure last summer, there is interest in bringing him back as a backup point guard, according to league sources.

Lakers are clearly looking to upgrade their underperforming rotation on the buyout market. And with this report, Laker’s desperation is audibly showing up. This will be a strange reunion if it happens.

Vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka said:

“We’ve been successful in the past. Obviously the year of the 2020 championship, we added a player like Markieff Morris who was influential. And we’re gonna continue to look for opportunities like that with the buyout market if there’s ways to make the team better.”

Lakers could definitely use some upgrade on their roaster over their multiple backend rotation players. And to be fair, Schöder does provide much better defense than the team’s current option. So we might get to see this reunion after all.