Before signing in Europe, Cedi Osman reported turned down a training camp invite from the Lakers this summer.
The Lakers missed out on every free agent they targeted this offseason, most notably losing the battle for Klay Thompson with the Mavericks. Those misses didn’t stop after the start of free agency, though.
On Saturday, Cedi Osman joined Greek side Panathinaikos, effectively ending his seven-year NBA career. After a promising start to his career, Osman has trended in the wrong direction, eventually seeing the Spurs renounce his rights.
Even then, he had options this summer, including with the Lakers. According to Nikola Miloradovic of EuroHoops, Osman was offered a training camp invite by the purple and gold, but turned it down to sign his deal overseas.
“He also received interest from the Los Angeles Lakers, which invited him for a training camp; however, due to the lack of guarantees about making it to the season roster, he decided to refuse and come back to Europe.”
The reaction online to this was as some sort of low point for the Lakers this offseason, but I have to say, I don’t see how.
The Lakers have 15 guaranteed contracts. If they could have traded one or more of them to open up a roster space at this point, they would have done it already. The fact they haven’t means their roster is probably the roster they’ll have going into the season.
That means it would have been a mere formality for Osman to join the team for training camp. He has seven years of tape for teams to look at, so a preseason where he would have had limited playing time wasn’t going to change things.
Instead, he took a much bigger guaranteed payday to play in Europe. It’s a smart move by him, especially looking at his averages last season. Despite playing on a bad Spurs team, Osman’s 6.8 points per game were the lowest of his career since his rookie season.
There was perhaps an intriguing aspect involving LeBron James, who was close with Osman early in his career. That wouldn’t make him a better player, nor would it make the Lakers have an open roster spot.
And Osman just simply hasn’t been good enough for multiple seasons to worry about the Lakers losing out on.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.
