Less than a week away from going up to Santa Barbara for their 2016 training camp, the Los Angeles Lakers completed filling out their camp roster with a couple of interesting names: Thomas Robinson, officially, and Metta World Peace, per The Vertical at Yahoo! Sports.
We'll get to World Peace in a moment, but Robinson is an interesting addition in that he was the no. 5 overall pick from the 2012 NBA Draft, meaning he was drafted ahead of Damian Lillard (no. 6), Harrison Barnes (no. 7), Andre Drummond (no. 9), Maurice Harkless (no. 15) and Draymond Green (no. 35). The fact that Robinson is on a non-guaranteed training camp contract is best understood by pointing out he's only started 11 games in four seasons.
Aged 25, Robinson could be one of the most intriguing camp invites and surely a player the Lakers will look to add to the LA D-Fenders, if nothing else. The Lakers are Robinson's sixth team in four years, as the former Kansas Jayhawk was traded three times in his first three NBA seasons. With the Brooklyn Nets for the duration of the 2015-16 season, Robinson appeared in 71 games, started seven contests and averaged 4.3 points and 5.1 rebounds in 12.9 minutes.
While Robinson is an intriguing, unknown entity, World Peace, obviously, is a familiar face.
The 36-year-old forward won an NBA Championship playing alongside 36-year-old Lakers coach Luke Walton back in 2010. World Peace is actually seven months older than Walton, which is somehow less awkward than it is interesting.
As was the case a year ago, World Peace is on a non-guaranteed training camp contract, so the likelihood of the veteran making the roster is not high. With a backlog at small forward with Luol Deng, Brandon Ingram (who threw the first pitch at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night) and Anthony Brown, World Peace doesn't exactly fit the team's needs on the court. Similarly, the Lakers have the power forward slot stacked with Larry Nance Jr. and Julius Randle splitting minutes, and Yi Jianlian and Tarik Black could potentially also play minutes at the position if needed.
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As it stands, the Lakers have a full roster ready for the regular season, so Robinson and World Peace face long odds to get into the team. Nick Young, however, is a wild card in that his involvement with the team has consistently come into question ever since a leaked video secretly taken by teammate D'Angelo Russell surfaced during the 2015-16 season. The issue caused friction in the locker room and the two players were not on speaking terms to end the season.
Even if that issue has been resolved and every other off-court issue is ignored, Young is on the fringes of the squad. He is currently penciled in as the third-string shooting guard for a team that is carrying five true guards: Russell, Marcelo Huertas, Jose Calderon, Jordan Clarkson and Lou Williams. More than likely, even if the Lakers opt to keep Young on the roster, the not-so-young 31-year-old is not expected to play significant minutes.
As such, Walton's headache at the end of camp may well be deciding which player best serves as a positive presence in a young locker room and at the end of the bench during games, because time on the court will be sparse at the spot that currently belongs to Young but could be assumed by World Peace, Robinson or any of the other training camp invitees: NBA Summer League standout Zach Auguste, former USC guard Julian Jacobs and former UCLA forward Travis Wear.
