Lakers Must Prioritize Gary Payton II to Complete Roster amid NBA Free Agency Rumors

Internally, it's been a rather loud 2025 NBA offseason for the Los Angeles Lakers due to ongoing speculation about LeBron James' future with the franchise and the impending—and critically important—contract extension talks with Luka Dončić.

Externally, though, things have been fairly quiet. And kind of in a good way. Losing Dorian Finney-Smith hurt, but that was their only major deflection. They also sort of offset that with a (sneaky-good) investment in Jake LaRavia, then were gifted a solution to their interior problems when the No. 1 pick of the 2018 draft, Deandre Ayton, fell in their laps.

Throw in the draft deal to land tools-y wing defender Adou Thiero, and this feels like progress—for a team that won 50 games and snagged the West's No. 3 seed this past season. The Lakers, in other words, were already in the championship chase and may have taken a quietly sizable step forward this summer.

There's still one item on the offseason wish list, though. As Dan Woike and Joe Vardon of The Athletic reported. "team sources have said that improving the team's point of attack defense is a priority."

That should probably read that it's the priority for the Purple and Gold, at least as far as external basketball business is concerned.

And while the free agent market has been plenty picked apart, there's still one obvious solution to this problem: Gary Payton II, a lockdown defender with championship experience on his resume and even some Lakers' history running through his bloodlines. His father, Gary Payton Sr., spent the 2003-04 season of his Hall of Fame career in L.A.

While the younger Payton has struggled to grow his offensive game, his defense has long ranked among the league's most disruptive. Just this past season, he held a 92nd percentile ranking in defensive estimated plus/minus, per Dunks & Threes. During the playoffs, he shaved a whopping 7.7 percentage points off of his matchups' normal field-goal percentage, per NBA.com.

He is both a playmaker (career 3.0 combined steals and blocks per 36 minutes, per Basketball-Reference) and a pest. Just a few months back, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr called Payton "one of the best defensive players in the league," per Andscape's Marc J. Spears.

The Lakers need a defensive talent like that.

Thiero is feisty and explosive, but he's an unproven rookie with an unpolished offensive skillset. Jarred Vanderbilt is an all-purpose stopper, but injuries have limited him to just 65 appearances over the last two campaigns combined.

L.A. could look for alternatives in free agency, but options are limited there, too. It sounds like De'Anthony Melton is going back to Golden State. Amir Coffey is an adequate defender, but nothing more. Torrey Craig was a versatile stopper at his peak, but he's 34 years old and couldn't hold down a playoff rotation spot for the Boston Celtics.

The pickings are slim, which should add to L.A.'s urgency to land Payton.

He does everything required of a perimeter defender, plus he knows how to leverage the open spaces created by playing alongside a gravitational star. It doesn't take much imagination to see him sniffing out cutting lanes or launching open corner threes alongside James, Dončić and Austin Reaves the way he would with Stephen Curry in Golden State.

Signing Payton may not garner a lot of headlines (save for those attached to every Lakers' update) or qualify as a sizable splash. Like the LaRavia, Ayton and Thiero additions, though, it'd be another smart, subtle upgrade to a roster that has quietly addressed a number of needs already.