{"id":494479,"date":"2025-07-20T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T04:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/?post_type=news&#038;p=494479"},"modified":"2025-07-20T00:00:45","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T04:00:45","slug":"marcus-smart-to-sign-with-lakers-after-wizards-buyout","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/marcus-smart-to-sign-with-lakers-after-wizards-buyout\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcus Smart to sign with Lakers after Wizards buyout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marcus Smart has agreed to a buyout deal with the Washington Wizards and plans to ink a 2-year, $11 million contract with the LA Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>The guard, who is the Defensive Player of the Year 3 years ago and a 3-time All-Defense first-team member, will have a player option on his Los Angeles contract to enter a more flush 2026 free agency.<\/p>\n<p>LA&#8217;s new franchise player, Luka Doncic, spoke with Marcus and shared that he wants him to become his teammate.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Luka Doncic recruited Marcus Smart to join the Lakers, per ESPN<\/p>\n<p>(h\/t <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Fullcourtpass?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@fullcourtpass<\/a>) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/MEHp9yJdBF\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/MEHp9yJdBF<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LegionHoops\/status\/1946681210303881461?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">July 19, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Smart, who made the postseason in each of his 1<sup>st<\/sup> 9 campaigns in the league with the Celtics, will now be again in a contender. Marcus missed the playoffs in the past 2 seasons with the Grizzlies and the Wizards.<\/p>\n<p>Marcus appeared in only 54 matches in the last 2 campaigns because of injuries, and averaged a career-low 20 minutes per match in the past year.<\/p>\n<p>The Suns and the Bucks also wanted to sign Marcus, but in the end, the Lakers convinced him that he is the right fit for the franchise, as Dorian Finney-Smith left, and that makes Smart a perfect replacement for his position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marcus Smart has agreed to a buyout deal with the Washington Wizards and plans to ink a 2-year, $11 million contract with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4225,"featured_media":494480,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[16970,18957],"news_category":[16706],"gn_keywords":[17645,20036],"acf":{"news_source":"","link_picture":"","announce":"The guard will join Los Angeles after leaving Washington.","video":[]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494482,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494479\/revisions\/494482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494479"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=494479"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=494479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}