There have been rumors surrounding Los Angeles Lakers guard Lou Williams for a while now as it seemed like a foregone conclusion that he would be moved before the trade deadline.
All of those rumors turned out to be accurate as the Lakers agreed to a deal with the Houston Rockets in exchange for Corey Brewer and a first-round pick via Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical:
The Rockets are sending Corey Brewer and a first-round pick to the Lakers for Lou Williams, league source tells @TheVertical.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) February 22, 2017
The most important piece here for the Lakers is undoubtedly the draft pick. The Lakers adding another pick in this very deep draft is very important, especially with no guarantee that they’ll keep their own draft pick.
Whether or not Brewer sticks around remains to be seen. Like Williams, Brewer’s contract runs through next season, but his contract is actually slightly larger than Williams’ as he is owed slightly under $7.6 million next season compared to Williams’ flat $7 million. The two are extremely different players however.
Brewer is extremely fast, long, and athletic and excels on defense. For his career he has average 1.3 steals per game. He brings very little to the table offensively though and he can not space the floor as he shoots 28.4 percent from three-point range for his career and only 23.4 percent this season.
Brewer does give the Lakers another wing option alongside rookie Brandon Ingram and his addition could potentially push Luol Deng out of the rotation.
