New Lakers guard looking for second chance at NBA stardom

For players like Collin Sexton, a top-10 pick in the 2018 draft, it can get easy to get lost in the shuffle of the NBA.As part of the Lakers’ roster reconstruction, he’s hoping to break through in ways he hasn’t before.Sexton, who was a 2017 McDonald’s All-American and one-and-done collegiate player at Alabama, became the first building block of the Cavaliers’ post-LeBron James rebuild after Cleveland selected Sexton with the No.8 pick in the 2018 draft. He finished fifth in the voting for the 2018-29 Rookie of the Year, and then had back-to-back seasons of averaging at least 20 points (including a career-high 24.3 points in 2020-21) – albeit for Cavaliers teams that won fewer than 31% of their games in each of Sexton’s first three seasons. Sexton, and the Cavaliers, were poised for a breakout in 2021-22 after Cleveland drafted Darius Garland in 2019, trading for Jarrett Allen in January 2021, selecting Evan Mobley in 2021 draft and acquiring Lauri Markkanen during the 2021 offseason.The breakout happened for the Cavaliers, but not Sexton, who played only 11 games before having season-ending left knee surgery. Meanwhile, the Cavaliers had their first winning season since James left, going 44-38 and missing the playoffs after being eliminated from the Play-In Tournament. That 2021-22 Cavaliers squad remains the only team Sexton’s finished a season with that had a winning record – let alone make the playoffs.With the Cavaliers looking to build off their breakout season, Cleveland traded Sexton (along with Markkanen, Ochai Agbaji and multiple draft picks) to the Jazz for star guard Donovan Mitchell. What followed for Sexton were three productive seasons with the Jazz: He averaged 17.5 points and 4.2 assists from 2022-25.But each of those seasons all ended the same way – with Sexton and his Jazz teammates watching the playoffs from home after a losing year.After being traded to the Hornets during the 2025 offseason, it appeared Sexton was going...