With 12 players currently under contract, the Lakers remain one under the NBA minimum.
However, moves will be made to boost that number because Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said he plans to have 18 players signed by the time the Lakers report for training camp in October.
Five guards currently are on the roster, including Coby Karl, who bounced back and forth last season as a rookie between the Lakers’ roster and the organization’s D-League team, the Los Angeles Defenders.
Not included is this year’s second-round draft pick Joe Crawford, who will have a non-guaranteed contract, when training camp commences in October.
The entrenched returnees for the Lakers begin with Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher, backed by Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic.
But if it is hot competition in the backcourt that the Lakers are seeking this fall, it might behoove them to consider Shaun Livingston.
The former Clippers guard is an unrestricted free agent and currently working out in Chicago, at noted personal trainer Tim Grover’s academy. Livingston’s goal is to resume his career for the 2008-2009 season.
The Clippers retain interest in Livingston and have had talks with Livingston’s agent, Henry Thomas.
But nothing has been settled since the Clippers declined to tender a qualifying offer of $5.8 million to Livingston and subsequently renounced their rights to him.
The 22-year old Livingston missed the entire 2007-2008 season and has not played in more than 17 months, since suffering a devastating injury to his left knee Feb. 26, 2007, in a game against the Charlotte Bobcats.
To this day, although I was less than 50 feet away from the basket in which Livingston’s injury happened, I have not been inclined to watch any video replay of it, the memory of which I decline to relive.
However, Livingston diligently has been adhering to a rehabilitation program and his knee has been pronounced sound by renowned orthopaedic surgeon James Andrews of Birmingham, Ala., who performed the extensive surgical repair of Livingston’s knee.
Although Livingston still is not playing any five-on-five basketball, he is working toward that and when I saw him in Chicago five days ago, he was in high spirits.
No one on the Lakers’ roster has the pure playmaking skills that Livingston possesses and prior to his injury, Livingston was developing into a top-notch defensive player, too.
However, Livingston now has to show this summer, during high-level pickup games involving NBA professionals, that he is healthy enough for a team to sign him.
