Los Angeles Lakers: Three better free agents that should’ve been signed

2. Jamal Crawford

• Better signing than Lance Stephenson

The Los Angeles Lakers shocked the world by signing Lance Stephenson to a one-year, $4.4 million deal shortly after signing LeBron James to his max deal.

This deal was obviously so shocking due to the history of chippy basketball that Stephenson has played with LeBron. Dating back to LeBron’s time in Miami, Stephenson has been a thorn in James’ side in the postseason on more than one occasion and actually seemed to get into his head.

So what do the Lakers do? Sign him to play with LeBron!

I get why the team signed Stephenson and he is going to have a fairly limited role on the Lakers. Los Angeles is going to likely use him in key defensive situations and is going to call on him to come into the came and cause havoc; to get under the skin of players like Draymond Green.

And while the Lakers would not have gotten that role with anyone else, the team would have been better off signing Jamal Crawford, who is still on the market!

Crawford, even at 38 years old, proved last season that he could still come in off the bench and hit a few clutch threes in pivotal spots. While his defense is fairly bad and he has lost a step or two, he is still one of the best scorers off the bench in the league.

If the Lakers were to sign Evans, it would open the door to bring in someone like Crawford who would exclusively come in off the bench at the end of quarters for Josh Hart; with Evans serving as the flexible and important asset off the bench.