{"id":759037,"date":"2026-06-12T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T10:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/759037\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T10:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T10:00:16","slug":"writer-names-lakers-as-one-of-three-logical-fits-for-klay-thompson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/759037\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer names Lakers as one of three ‘logical fits’ for Klay Thompson"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 11, 2026, 9:01 p.m. PT<\/p>\n

One of the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>‘ multiple roster needs right now is 3-point shooting. During the regular season, they ranked 14th in 3-point shooting percentage and 24th in 3-point attempts, and other than their three stars, they only have two above-average 3-point shooters in their regular rotation: Luke Kennard and Rui Hachimura, both of whom are about to become free agents.<\/p>\n

Some feel the way for the Lakers to become championship contenders is to duplicate the way the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> built around Luka Doncic. That means bringing in a shot-blocking, rim-running center who is a lob threat, and it could mean bringing in at least one player who has played alongside Doncic in the past.<\/p>\n

James Piercey of the Dallas Hoops Journal<\/a> wrote that the Mavericks should consider trading Klay Thompson because he doesn’t fit their current timeline, and he named the Lakers as one of three “logical fits” for Thompson, along with the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors, his original team.<\/p>\n

“Thompson\u2019s reason for joining the Mavericks is worth recalling,” Piercey wrote. “He signed in 2024 to play alongside Luka Donc\u030cic\u0301. Dallas then traded Donc\u030cic\u0301 in February 2025, leaving Thompson on a rebuilding roster.<\/p>\n

“A move to the Los Angeles Lakers would reunite the two. Los Angeles has a less pressing need than Houston, but it could use additional spacing around Donc\u030cic\u0301, and the on-court fit that made the pairing logical before still holds. The Lakers carry less draft capital than the Rockets, though they could include Dalton Knecht to sweeten an offer.<\/p>\n

“Los Angeles has also been linked to Daniel Gafford, raising the possibility of a deal between the two teams.”<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that even at age 36, Thompson is still a definite threat from beyond the arc. He shot 38.3% on 7.6 3-point attempts a game this season, and that was the lowest 3-point accuracy of his career, which shows how deadly he has always been in that category.<\/p>\n

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However, the rest of his game has suffered ever since he sustained ACL and Achilles injuries several years ago. He isn’t exactly the plus defender he was prior to those injuries, and his 2-point accuracy has plummeted from 50.3% in the 2023-24 campaign to 41.8% this season. Overall, Thompson shot 39.3% from the field and averaged 11.7 points a game, both of which were career lows, this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 11, 2026, 9:01 p.m. PT One of the Los Angeles Lakers‘ multiple roster needs right now is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[72400,7,686,149,4057,166,6,90545,53093,72522,72404,72934,73765,72464,93213,72689,74191,72666,72757,72406,72403],"class_list":["post-759037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-mavericks","tag-accessfree","tag-basketball","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallasmavericks","tag-mavericks","tag-nba","tag-sourcelebron-wire","tag-sstssportsnba","tag-sstsnnba","tag-tagbasketball","tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","tag-tagcgr-sports","tag-tagdallas-mavericks","tag-tagklay-thompson","tag-taglos-angeles-lakers","tag-tagluke-kennard","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagrui-hachimura","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116736558621933905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}