The 10 veteran ex-Lakers from 2021-22 still looking for work this offseason

If the theme for the Los Angeles Lakers‘ free agency direction last summer was established and familiar, then the profile of L.A.’s signing haul this offseason can best be described as fresh and emerging.

“I think we’ve gotten younger, I think we’ve gotten faster, I think we’ve gotten hungrier,” new Lakers coach Darvin Ham said of his team’s free agency class headlined by Lonnie Walker IV (23), Troy Brown Jr. (23), Thomas Bryant (25), Damian Jones (27) and Juan Toscano-Anderson (29).

Contrast that to 2021, when nine players the Lakers signed were age 30 or older on veteran-minimum contracts — with six of them having prior experience with the franchise. Not to mention the two additional players in their 30s that L.A. signed to 10-day contracts when COVID-19 compromised the team midseason, one of whom — Isaiah Thomas — was also coming back for a second stint with the purple and gold. It was a flawed approach and a major contributing factor to the Lakers’ struggles, along with Russell Westbrook‘s decline, LeBron James and Anthony Davis combining to miss 68 games due to injuries and former coach Frank Vogel’s inability to make the pieces fit.

Outside of Carmelo Anthony‘s performance, which should be considered inspired for a 19-year veteran at best and get-what-you-pay-for at worst, the collection of thirty-somethings proved to be unreliable, underwhelming and injury prone.

Now, more than a month into 2022 free agency and with teams around the league all but finished filling out their rosters for the upcoming season, 10 of those 11 veteran players once hand-picked to be the role players to fortify the Lakers’ championship chase are still looking for work.

And the lone player out of that group to latch onto a new team this summer — DeAndre Jordan, who signed for the veteran minimum with the Denver Nuggets — finished last season in Philadelphia after L.A. waived him in March.

Here’s a look at the former Lakers standing in the unemployment line and our front office insider Bobby Marks gives his predictions on where each player could land next season.

Stats: 13.3 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 1.0 APG

What went right in 2021-22: Anthony and James became the first pair of 19-year veterans to be teammates in NBA history. The Lakers went 10-6 when Anthony made four or more 3s in a game. Vogel even credited Anthony for winning L.A. some games on the defensive side of the ball early in the season, when he had two blocks and a steal against Memphis in late October, and…