After officially clearing waivers on Wednesday, center Deandre Ayton has agreed to sign with the Lakers as an unrestricted free agent, confirms Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
Marc Stein and Jake Fischer of The Stein Line (Twitter link) first reported that rival teams with interest in Ayton were expecting him to commit to the Lakers after he cleared waivers, while NBA insider Chris Haynes (Twitter link) also reported that the former No. 1 overall pick was on track to end up in Los Angeles.
According to Charania, Ayton will make roughly $34MM in total next season between his old contract with the Blazers and his new deal with L.A. The veteran big man agreed to give up $10MM of his $35.6MM salary in a buyout with Portland and now appears set to receive the $8MM+ the Lakers will have left on their mid-level exception after their deal with Jake LaRavia, tweets cap expert Yossi Gozlan.
Ayton’s new deal with the Lakers will cover two years, according to Fischer (Twitter link).
More to come…