The Lakers' new backup center played 314 games without trouble. Then last season.

The Los Angeles Lakers signed center Kevon Looney to a one-year deal this offseason as part of a broader roster overhaul following LeBron James's departure. Looney's addition is a modest, low-cost move by NBA standards — but it raises a specific question the Lakers are betting they've answered correctly: whether last season's steep drop in games played was a real decline or a one-year outlier.

The record before last season

Before 2025-26, Looney had played 314 total regular-season games across his career with the Golden State Warriors, built largely on rebounding and physical, high-contact play — setting screens and crashing the offensive glass, a role that accumulates wear differently than a perimeter player's [s1]. That volume of games, sustained over years in a demanding physical role, is itself a data point: it's the kind of durability record that makes a team comfortable signing a player in his 30s.

What happened in 2025-26

Looney played just 21 games with the New Orleans Pelicans last season [s1] — a sharp break from his prior pattern. Reporting on the drop-off notes a clear decline in his offensive production and overall mobility that season, though his rebounding reportedly held up better than the rest of his game [s1]. One analysis attributes the decline to cumulative physical impact: "The games and minutes crashing the glass and setting bruising screens for the Warriors had to have some cumulative impact, limiting his mobility and, last season, his availability" [s1].

That's a specific, testable hypothesis — accumulated wear from a physically demanding role catching up with a player — but it's also an interpretation, not a confirmed diagnosis. The available reporting doesn't specify a single injury or diagnosed condition that limited Looney to 21 games; it describes the drop-off in terms of cumulative impact and reduced mobility rather than one clear medical event.

Why this is a genuinely open question, not a settled one

A 21-game season following 314 games of durable, physical play could reflect several different things: a real, permanent decline in a body that's absorbed years of contact; a specific injury that happened to occur that season and could resolve; or simply a bad-luck year that doesn't predict what comes next. The reporting on Looney's situation explicitly reflects that uncertainty — one analysis frames the coming season as a real test of whether the decline is temporary or durable, without claiming to know the answer in advance [s1].

Why the Lakers made this move anyway

A one-year deal is itself a hedge — it lets the Lakers find out which version of Looney shows up without a multi-year commitment riding on the answer. If last season was cumulative wear catching up with him permanently, the downside for Los Angeles is limited to a single season's roster spot. If it was closer to a one-year aberration, they get a proven rebounder and screen-setter at a low cost.

What to watch next

Looney's games-played total and mobility this season, measured against both his Warriors-era durability and last year's 21-game season — whichever direction it goes will be the clearest evidence yet of which explanation for 2025-26 was correct.