Lakers' Urgent Search for Frontcourt Depth After Kuminga's Decision

The Los Angeles Lakers built their summer around one plan. Then Jonathan Kuminga chose Minnesota.

That single decision from a coveted, versatile forward sent the Lakers back to the whiteboard and straight into a tight corner of the cap sheet. The frontcourt still has a hole. The clock is ticking.

As Khobi Price of the California Post laid out, the numbers are unforgiving. The Lakers sit just $8.1 million below the NBA’s $209 million first-apron threshold and are hard-capped for the 2026-27 season. Sixteen players already hold guaranteed contracts. Flexibility is a theory, not a reality.

Yet the needs are obvious: a power forward and a backup center. At least one of those boxes must be checked before training camp opens in a month. That’s not a luxury issue. It’s structural.

A Thin Market, a Thinner Asset Chest

The urgency is sharpened by one simple fact: Walker Kessler is a question, not an answer. The new starting big man, acquired from the Utah Jazz in a seismic sign-and-trade in July, played only five games last season. Banking on him to shoulder the entire interior load would be reckless.

So the Lakers are combing a big man market that, as Price notes, is heavy on demand and light on quality supply. They don’t have the picks or prospects to swim with the sharks. They have to shop in the second and third tiers.

The asset situation says it all. The Lakers’ tradable draft capital is threadbare: their own 2033 second-round pick, two second-rounders from the Wizards in 2031 and 2032 from the Deandre Ayton–Jaden Hardy swap, and a single first-round pick they can outright move in 2032. After that, it’s mostly players who could become expiring contracts if team options for 2027-28 are declined, names like Hardy and Dalton Knecht.

That’s not the toolbox of a team about to swing a blockbuster. It’s the profile of a franchise hunting for undervalued rotation pieces on other teams’ benches.

Which is where two names emerge.

Jericho Sims: The Vertical Threat

If the Lakers go the trade route for frontcourt depth, Price points to two realistic targets: Bucks center Jericho Sims and Bulls big man Jalen Smith. Both were also flagged by The Athletic’s Dan Woike as players the Lakers are monitoring.

Sims, 27, sits third on Milwaukee’s center depth chart behind Myles Turner and Kel’el Ware. That alone makes him a candidate to be pried loose. Price notes he could be on the move, and his profile fits what Los Angeles badly needs behind Kessler.

Woike described Sims as the ideal “run-and-jump” big to place next to Luka Doncic, a big, explosive athlete who thrives as a lob target and rebounder. Scouts still question his defensive impact away from the rim, and he has never produced consistently over long stretches, but that’s precisely why he’s reachable. He’s the kind of player a team might move for second-round capital.

For the Lakers, that’s the lane they’re in. Sims wouldn’t arrive as a savior. He’d arrive as a specialist: a dunker, a glass-cleaner, a vertical spacer who can survive in a limited role. On a roster starved for reliable size behind an injury-affected starter, that matters.

Jalen Smith: Motor, Shooting, and a Price Tag

If Sims represents the pure athlete, Jalen Smith offers a different package.

Smith, 26, is undersized for a traditional center at 6-foot-8, but he brings energy and a developing jumper. Within the Lakers’ building, Woike reports, he has fans. They like his motor. They like that he has turned himself into a “pretty good” outside shooter. In a league obsessed with five-out spacing and stretch bigs, that kind of profile always draws attention.

The complications are obvious. Smith is on an expiring one-year, $9.5 million deal, a significant number for a team tiptoeing around the apron. His size raises questions about whether he can anchor bench units defensively against bigger second units. And his actual availability is murky. The previous Bulls regime liked him, which clouds how eager Chicago would be to move him under the current decision-makers.

For the Lakers, Smith is the more expensive, more nuanced bet. He’s not just a rim-runner. He’s a rotation-level big who expects minutes, touches, and a role. Acquiring him would demand not only assets but a clear plan.

A Narrow Path to Answers

This is where the Lakers find themselves: boxed in by the cap, limited in draft picks, and staring at a frontcourt that still looks one body short.

They chased Kuminga and missed. They landed Kessler but can’t be certain of his durability. They have a superstar in Luka Doncic who needs athletes and size around him, not more theoretical fits.

So the question becomes simple and brutal: can they turn a thin stack of second-rounders and a couple of flexible contracts into a real backup big man?

Sims and Smith won’t change the championship odds on their own. But for a team this constrained, the margin between a functional bench frontcourt and a fatal flaw might come down to whether one of those two becomes available — and whether the Lakers move fast enough to grab him.