When the Los Angeles Lakers signed a number of players like Jaxson Hayes, Christian Wood and Cam Reddick to minimum contracts last summer, they also gave them player options for the 2024-25 seasons.
Now, that gives those players the ability to opt in for this season and stay with the team ahead of free agency if they feel their markets are not strong.
Hayes is actually coming off a strong finish to the 2023-24 season, which led many to believe his market would be above the minimum. Overall in 70 games, Hayes averaged 4.3 points and 3.0 rebounds in limited minutes. When stretching those stats out to a per-36-minute basis, he averaged 12.4 points and 8.7 rebounds.
At just 24 years of age and being a former lottery pick, there is still some room for growth in Hayes’ game. He recently discussed how much he enjoyed learning from Anthony Davis on the Lakers this past season, and it appears he wants to continue doing so.
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Hayes has decided to pick up his $2.46 million player option to return to the Lakers for the 2024-25 season:
Lakers center Jaxson Hayes is exercising his $2.4 million player option to return for the 2024-25 season, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Hayes reunites with new coach JJ Redick. pic.twitter.com/FCmbZAWwoK
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 29, 2024
Wood also decided to pick up his player option for the 2024-25 season, so both of the centers that backed up Davis last year are still under contract.
The Lakers reportedly have a desire to upgrade the center position though, so more moves could be on the way via trade or free agency. Both Wood and Hayes are quality players but lack size and bulk to defend the top centers like Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid.
Now that they are both under contract at the minimum, it is possible that the Lakers include either Hayes or Wood in a trade to help with salary ballast, perhaps for another center.
Jaxson Hayes evaluates first season with Lakers
While Jaxson Hayes’ first season with the Lakers didn’t end how they wanted it to, he evaluated his individual play for the purple and gold.
“Definitely struggled a lot to start the year,” Hayes said of his play and role. “Just in and out of the rotation, not knowing when I was gonna get minutes and having very inconsistent minutes. I feel like when Coach benched me for that month and a half, I was able to sit back and actually figure out how I can help this team more and I feel like as the season went on, I tried to grow more into my role of just being the backup and bringing energy and stuff.”
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