Former Spurs first-round pick without a job clearly deserves to be signed

In 2018, the Spurs drafted this crazy-haired kid from Reading, Pennsylvania, named Lonnie Walker IV. Walker never really reached his potential in San Antonio, but that doesn't mean he wasn't an NBA player. He spent four years with the team that drafted him and averaged 12 points per game in his final season with the Silver and Black.

Unfortunately, he regressed as a three-point shooter, and his defense was lacking, so it was easy to see why the front office moved on at the time. And to be clear, I'm not suggesting the Spurs bring him back. I'm saying a guy who just last season, for the injury-infested 76ers, averaged 12 points, three rebounds, three assists, and a steal in 24 minutes a game deserves a job somewhere.

Walker has mostly been on bad teams since leaving the Spurs

His first year was spent as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. He maintained his scoring output of 12 points per game but started dropping threes in the bucket at a much higher clip than his previous year. Walker went from shooting 31% from deep in his last year with the Spurs to 37%.

The pogo-stick athlete even had a significant playoff moment alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis. In a series-defining game against the Golden State Warriors, Walker caught fire, going 6/9 and scoring all 15 of his points in the fourth quarter to help the Purple and Gold win by three points. They went on to win the series but were excommunicado at the hands of the eventual champion Denver Nuggets in four games.

After that, he spent time on an awful Brooklyn Nets team, and last season, he played a chunk of the year overseas in Lithuania with EuroLeague club Zalgiris Kaunas. Eventually, he signed a two-year deal with Philly and played in 20 games. They opted to decline the second year of his deal, though, and now he's on the market again.

You mean to tell me that there's no team out there that can't use an athletic guard who can make threes at slightly above the league average, post 12 points per game, and energize your team with highlight plays? I find that hard to believe. As much as I would hate to see anything good happen for the Lakers, they still need help with surrounding Luka Doncic with depth.

Walker would be a perfect fit back in LA. But the Lakers haven't done a great job of building their rosters without help. Maybe another team will smarten up and add a valuable player to their roster, but then again, there are a lot of organizations that don't know what they're doing out there.