The Lakers picked 23-year old center Robert Sacre out of Gonzaga with the 60th overall pick (2nd round) of the 2012 NBA Draft.  Sacre is 7’0″, 260 pounds.  Sacre played in 33 games for Gonzaga last year and he averaged 26.3 minutes, 11.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, 0.7 assists and 1.4 blocked shots per game.  He played in 136 games in his five years in college in which he averaged 21.7 minutes, 9.3 points, 5.0 rebounds, 0.7 assists and 1.4 blocked shots per game.  The Lakers hope that Sacre can help them off the bench in 2012-13.

The Dallas Mavericks picked 22-year old shooting guard Darius Johnson-Odom of Marquette with the 55th overall pick (2nd round) of the 2012 NBA Draft.  Johnson-Odom is 6’2″, 215 pounds.  He played in 34 games for Marquette last year and he averaged 32.9 minutes, 18.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game.  He played in 105 games in his three years at Marquette and he averaged 30.8 minutes, 15.7 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game.  The Lakers hope that Johnson-Odom can help them off the bench in 2012.

26-year old point guard Ramon Sessions has opted out of the final year of his contract with the Lakers, valued at $4.5 million bucks.  He is now and unrestricted free agent.  Sessions played in 23 games (19 starts) for the Lakers last year and he averaged 30.5 minutes, 12.7 points, 3.8 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game.  He has now played in 323 games (108 starts) in his first five years in the NBA and he is averaging 25.4 minutes, 11.1 points, 3.1 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game.  This just creates another hole on the Lakers’ roster.

The Lakers have five free agents heading into this summer.  Small forward Matt Barnes as stated that he is going to play for the highest bidder next year, and that won’t likely be the Lakers.  The Lakers really want to bring back PF Jordan Hill as he really had some good games for them late in the year, but he likely won’t come cheap.  I don’t see the Lakers showing much of an interest in bringing back power forward Troy Murphy.  The Lakers probably wouldn’t mind bringing back SG/SF Devin Ebanks and guard Darius Morris as they are both restricted free agents.

The Lakers traded their first round pick (#24 overall) to the Cavaliers for point guard Ramon Sessions last year.  That leaves the Lakers with only the #60 pick in the 2012 NBA Draft.  I see the Lakers taking the best player available and in my mock draft (found on bloglockers.com), I have them picking point guard Tyshawn Taylor out of Kansas.  Point guard has been a problem spot for the Lakers, so picking Taylor would make a lot of sense.