Jason Terry: Luke Walton ‘utterly declined’ my offer to join Lakers
The Jet apparently wanted to land in Los Angeles this summer, but Luke Walton wasn’t having any of it.
In a recent interview with Tom Byrne of SiriusXM NBA Radio, veteran guard Jason Terry revealed that he wanted to join the Lakers and reached out to new head coach Luke Walton (who also played his college ball at Arizona), but Walton wasn’t interested.
“I called my good friend Luke,” Terry said. “I told him if he needed any help, veteran leadership, in that capacity – Lakers – with an ability to coach at the end of my deal, then that was something I would be looking forward to. He utterly declined, and I respect him for that.”
The 38-year-old Terry ultimately chose to sign with the Milwaukee Bucks. While the Lakers have a number of young guards who could have used some Terry Tips, their roster has enough elder statesmen as is after adding Jose Calderon, Timofey Mozgov, Luol Deng, and Yi Jianlian this offseason.
On an even younger Milwaukee team, Terry can both tutor and get some actual playing time on a squad desperate for three-point shooting, so it looks like everything worked out for the best.