Lakers Officially Sign Cole Swider and Scotty Pippen Jr. to Two-Way Deals
There was plenty of Lakers contract news yesterday as LA inked four free agents to deals in the opening hours of NBA free agency. Juan Toscano-Anderson, Troy Brown Jr., Damian Jones, and Lonnie Walker IV all agreed to deals with LA with Walker receiving the Lakers lone mid-level exception slot ($6.5M).
On Friday, the Lakers made it official with some other new faces. Undrafted rookies Scotty Pippen Jr. and Cole Swider officially signed their two-way contracts with the Lakers. Kyle Goon from The Orange County Register was one of the first to report and in his tweet, included the press release from the Lakers.
Scotty Pippen Jr., who intentionally spells his first name differently than his NBA Hall-of-Fame father, spent three seasons at Vanderbilt and led the SEC in scoring this past season. Which is somewhat notable considering that scoring forward Jabari Smith Jr., who was drafted third overall by the Houston Rockets, played in the same conference while at Auburn.
As Goon notes, the 6'9" Swider is a shooting specialist who could wind up getting his two-way contract converted to a standard NBA deal (a la Austin Reaves) if he can provide the Lakers with some of the three-point shooting they desperately need.
Two-way contracts first started in the 2017-2018 season and expanded NBA rosters from 15 to 17 players. Only players in their fourth NBA season or earlier are eligible to sign a two-way contract. By rule, two-way players cannot spend more than 45 days with their corresponding NBA team. It's a developmental stepping stone for players that otherwise would solely be playing in the G-League.
