Getty Frank Mason defending Garrett Temple.
The Los Angeles Lakers are gearing up for the start of the regular season and continue to make roster moves. The team just recently released Mac McClung to make room for Sekou Doumbouya and weren’t done there. Los Angeles announced on Thursday that they’ve decided to waive veteran guard Frank Mason.
The Los Angeles Lakers have waived guard Frank Mason III.
Though it was reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski last week that Mason had signed with the Lakers, the team only announced the signing on Wednesday.
OFFICIAL: The Lakers have signed Frank Mason III to an Exhibit-10 training camp contract
It took the team less than 24 hours after they announced the Mason signing to announce they were letting him go. The veteran guard has been in the NBA since 2017 and played for the Sacramento Kings, Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic. He played in 103 combined games for those teams but won’t get a chance with the Lakers. He was always going to have a hard time making a Los Angeles team that is already ripe with veteran talent. With training camp nearing its end, the Lakers aren’t likely to sign any more players to training camp contracts.
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Carmelo Anthony Says Lakers Are ‘Locked In’
There’s a lot of excitement surrounding this year’s Lakers but the early returns are concerning. The team is 0-5 in the preseason and doesn’t look particularly good. We got our first glimpse at LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook on Tuesday against the Golden State Warriors. Despite the Warriors not playing Steph Curry, the Lakers still lost 111-99. Though things look rough for the team right, Carmelo Anthony doesn’t appear worried.
“We can see how we jell together. I thought we had some great moments when all four of us were on the court together,” Anthony said Wednesday. “We had spurts where we were very in-tune, we were locked in. We don’t expect it to happen overnight. But I thought [Tuesday] was one of those moments where like, ‘OK, we see that, we see that.’
“It looks good. It felt good. I believe we will build off of that.”
Obviously, it’s going to take the Lakers to figure things out this season. The roster has been completely retooled. It’s far from time to panic quite yet.
Anthony Believes Lakers Will Figure Things out Quickly
The Lakers have too much talent to at least make it to the playoffs. However, it’s championship-or-bust for this team. It remains to be seen just how long it will take for the team to figure things out but Anthony believes it will happen more quickly than people expect.
“You find your groove,” Anthony said. “I think we’ll figure it out much quicker than people are giving us credit for. But that’s on us. That’s something, we take that challenge. That’s something we know and that’s something we talk about. Even though it’s preseason and we lost some games, that’s definitely something that we talk about. How do we speed that process up without cheating?
“And I think we’re very aware when it comes to that.”
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