Lakers Pursue Walker

Having reached a verbal agreement with Mitch Richmond, the Lakers are now near a deal with former San Antonio Spur forward Samaki Walker, which would go a long way toward rebuilding their depleted frontcourt.

“We have other offers out there,” Walker’s agent, Tony Dutt, said Thursday from Houston, “but this is by far the most intriguing and the one that we’re considering the most. . . .

“It’s at the top of our list right now and we’ll probably make a decision [this] morning.”

Said Walker: “It’s a great opportunity. It’s hard to turn down a chance to play for a championship contending team. The fact that I can start for a team like that ispretty much everything a player needs.”

Without an actual signed deal, the Lakers maintained their noncommittal posture.

“It’s our policy not to comment on who we may or may not be pursuing,” General Manager Mitch Kupchak said.

Like Richmond, who reportedly has agreed to take $1 million, this would be a bargain. Walker would get a two-year deal with an opt-out next season, allowing him to become a free agent, and an annual salary around $1.5 million.

Not that the Lakers are desperate for big men, but after the departures of Horace Grant and Greg Foster and the injury to Mark Madsen, they had two players over 6 feet 8 left from their playoff roster: Shaquille O’Neal and Robert Horry.

Walker is a 6-9, 260-pound athlete, if one who has yet to live up to the promise that made him the ninth pick in the 1996 draft.

Originally selected by Dallas, he signed as a free agent with the Spurs in 1999 and played the last two seasons in San Antonio, backing up Tim Duncan and David Robinson. He has averaged 6.0 points and 4.5 rebounds in five seasons.

Spur coaches thought he was still a prospect, even if a team official noted he wasn’t the hardest-nosed prospect they’d ever seen.

Walker was due to receive $3.2 million next season, but the Spurs exercised their option to buy him out for $600,000, obliged to free up money to re-sign Robinson and Derek Anderson.

Robinson has agreed to a two-year $20-million deal. Negotiations with Anderson are ongoing.

Having won two titles with little size in reserve, the Lakers have targeted Walker from the beginning, hoping he’d take a smaller payday to play with them.

However, after offering similar deals in recent seasons to Charles Oakley and Kendall Gill, both of whom said they wanted to come but ultimately went for the bucks, the Lakers didn’t dare hope.

Hemmed in by their new budget that restricts them to the luxury tax threshold of $54.3 million, Laker officials feared another team would offer Walker more.

Indeed, Walker negotiated with Cleveland last week, indicating he’d be happy to join a rebuilding team, instead, if the Cavaliers would offer him their $4.5-million middle-class exception as the first year of a six-year deal, which could have been $33 million worth.

However, the new Cavalier coach, John Lucas, is projecting center Chris Mihm to be his new power forward. The Cavaliers are thought to have offered $4 million, but only a one-year deal.

The Lakers seem similarly on track with Richmond. However, Richmond’s agent, Michael Sharpe, is in Italy and nothing may happen officially before next week.