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    Lonnie Walker IV

    Lonnie Walker IV (SG, 6'4) was drafted #18 overall by the San Antonio Spurs in 2018.

    2018 #18 · 7 NBA seasons

    Lonnie Walker IV career timeline

    1. San Antonio Spurs · 2018–2022

      Draft — June 21, 2018 — San Antonio drafted Walker #18 overall out of Miami. Four seasons on the rookie scale before San Antonio pulled the qualifying offer and he left in free agency.

      When San Antonio selected Lonnie Walker IV with the 18th pick of the 2018 NBA Draft, the attraction was easy to understand. Walker had spent only one season at Miami, averaging 11.5 points while becoming the first freshman in program history to earn All-ACC recognition, but his NBA appeal extended beyond the numbers. At 6-foot-5 with explosive leaping ability, long arms and a developing jumper, he looked like exactly the kind of raw prospect the Spurs had built a reputation for developing. His introduction to the league was immediately slowed by injury. Walker underwent surgery after tearing the medial meniscus in his right knee during the 2018 preseason, and when he returned, much of his rookie development came away from the spotlight with the Austin Spurs. He appeared in only 17 NBA games that season. It was an early lesson in patience, something that would define much of his time under Gregg Popovich. Walker had obvious athletic gifts, but San Antonio wanted him to understand defensive positioning, decision-making and how to play within its system before handing him a permanent role. Then came the night that made everyone understand the excitement. On December 3, 2019, San Antonio trailed Houston by 16 entering the fourth quarter when Walker essentially hijacked the game. He scored 19 points in the fourth, repeatedly attacking the Rockets while providing the energy that dragged the Spurs back into contention. Walker finished with a then-career-high 28 points, four rebounds and three steals, shooting 10-of-18 overall and 4-of-7 from three as San Antonio eventually won 135–133 in double overtime. At 20, he became the youngest player in Spurs history to score at least 25 points off the bench. That Houston game became both the promise and frustration of Walker's Spurs career. There were nights when his combination of speed, elevation and shot-making made him look capable of becoming something much larger. Maintaining that level consistently proved harder. His role nevertheless expanded every season. After averaging 5.6 points in 2019–20, he climbed to 11.2 in 2020–21 while making 38 starts, finally receiving the sustained NBA opportunity he had spent two years earning. His fourth season brought another adjustment. Walker returned primarily to the bench in 2021–22 but became increasingly comfortable as an instant-offense option. He appeared in 70 games, started six and produced career highs of 12.1 points and 2.2 assists in 23.0 minutes per game. It wasn't the star-level breakthrough once imagined when his athleticism first caught everyone's attention, but Walker had developed into a legitimate NBA rotation scorer. San Antonio was changing around him, too. The franchise that drafted Walker while still trying to remain competitive had gradually moved toward a younger rebuild. By the summer of 2022, Dejounte Murray was headed to Atlanta and the Spurs were preparing to hand larger responsibilities to their next wave of prospects. San Antonio initially extended Walker a qualifying offer, which would have made him a restricted free agent, but later rescinded it and allowed him to become unrestricted. He signed a one-year, $6.5 million deal with the Lakers, ending his Spurs career after four seasons. Walker left San Antonio having played 208 games with 56 starts, averaging 9.4 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.6 assists. He never quite became the breakout star his most spectacular nights suggested was possible, but San Antonio gave him his NBA foundation. The Spurs drafted the athletic mystery. Four years later, they sent a genuine NBA scorer out into the league.

    2. Los Angeles Lakers · 2022–2023

      Free agent — July 6, 2022 — signed a 1-year, $6.48 million contract with the Lakers after San Antonio withdrew his qualifying offer.

      Lonnie Walker IV arrived in Los Angeles at an important point in his career. Four years in San Antonio had established him as an NBA scorer without completely answering what kind of player he could become, and when the Spurs rescinded his qualifying offer in the summer of 2022, Walker suddenly had the freedom to choose his next destination. The Lakers offered both opportunity and pressure. He agreed to a one-year, $6.5 million contract, joining LeBron James and Anthony Davis on a team desperate to rebound from missing the playoffs. For much of the first half of the season, Walker looked like one of Los Angeles' better offseason additions. Darvin Ham trusted him as a starter, and his athleticism gave the Lakers another player capable of attacking in transition and creating his own shot. Walker ultimately appeared in 56 regular-season games, starting 32, and averaged 11.7 points while shooting 44.8% from the field and 36.5% from three. His finishing improved too, as he converted 52.2% of his two-point attempts, then the best mark of his career. But his season changed dramatically after the trade deadline. Los Angeles reshaped its roster by adding D'Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt, while Austin Reaves' emergence demanded more minutes. Walker, who had already missed time with knee tendinitis, suddenly found himself squeezed out. The player who had started regularly early in the season was barely part of the rotation by the time the playoffs arrived. That could easily have been the end of his Lakers story. Walker didn't play at all in several postseason games and was outside Ham's regular rotation during Los Angeles' first-round victory over Memphis. Then came Golden State. Walker worked his way back into the rotation during the second-round series against the defending champion Warriors, scoring nine points in Game 2 and 12 in Game 3. In Game 4 on May 8, 2023, the Lakers entered the fourth quarter trailing by seven. Ham stayed with Walker, searching for someone who could create offense against Golden State's defense. What followed became the defining 12 minutes of Walker's Lakers career. He scored all 15 of his points in the fourth quarter, shooting 6-of-9 and repeatedly punishing Golden State with pull-ups and drives. With Stephen Curry trying to drag the Warriors back into the series, Walker kept answering. Los Angeles won 104–101, taking a commanding 3–1 series lead. His 15 fourth-quarter points were the most by a Lakers reserve in the final quarter of a playoff game since Kobe Bryant on May 8, 1997 — exactly 26 years earlier. The moment became even bigger because of everything that preceded it. Walker hadn't complained publicly when his role disappeared. He stayed prepared, waited, and when a championship contender suddenly needed him, he delivered one of the defining performances of the Lakers' playoff run. LeBron made the significance clear afterward: Los Angeles didn't win that game without him. The Lakers eventually eliminated Golden State in six games and reached the Western Conference Finals before Denver swept them. Walker's role never became enormous again, and after the season he entered unrestricted free agency. He spent only one year in Los Angeles. He started, lost his place, waited and eventually left. Yet whenever his Lakers stint is remembered, everything circles back to those 12 minutes against Golden State. Sometimes an entire chapter really can be defined by one quarter.

    3. Brooklyn Nets · 2023–2024

      Free agent — July 10, 2023 — signed a 1-year, $2.34 million contract with Brooklyn. Never played for Boston: August 29, 2024 Exhibit 10 with BOS, waived October 19, 2024 — logged as exit contract events on this stint only.

      Lonnie Walker IV entered the summer of 2023 in a strange position. Only weeks earlier, he had produced the most memorable performance of his career, scoring all 15 of his points in the fourth quarter of the Lakers' Game 4 playoff victory over Golden State. It seemed like the kind of moment that might create momentum heading into free agency, but the market never developed into the opportunity Walker might have expected. Instead, he landed in Brooklyn on a one-year deal, joining a Nets team trying to reshape itself around Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and a collection of versatile wings. Unlike in Los Angeles, where Walker had moved in and out of the starting lineup, Brooklyn immediately found a simpler role for him. He didn't start a single game all season. Instead, Jacque Vaughn asked him to enter games and attack, giving the second unit a scorer who didn't need much time to get comfortable. Walker embraced it, and the beginning of his Nets career was arguably some of the most efficient basketball he had played. The early performances came quickly. Walker scored 21 points in a 100–93 victory over the Clippers on November 8, then followed it two nights later with 20 points, seven rebounds and four assists in only 20 minutes against Boston. Less than a week later, he dropped 23 against Miami. For stretches, Walker looked like one of the NBA's better bargain signings, providing exactly the kind of instant offense Brooklyn's bench needed. His momentum was interrupted in late November by a hamstring injury that eventually kept him out for more than a month. That absence mattered. Walker had established a rhythm and a clear place in Brooklyn's rotation, but when he returned, the season around him was beginning to change. The Nets struggled to remain in the Eastern Conference playoff picture, Vaughn was eventually replaced by Kevin Ollie, and Walker's minutes became less predictable. Even with the interruption, his final numbers remained solid. Walker appeared in 58 games, all as a reserve, averaging 9.7 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.3 assists in only 17.4 minutes per game. More importantly, he shot 38.4% from three on 4.7 attempts per game, the best three-point percentage of his NBA career to that point. For a player whose outside shot had fluctuated throughout his first five seasons, that improvement gave Brooklyn a more complete version of the athletic scorer San Antonio had originally drafted. The Nets themselves never found the same rhythm. Brooklyn finished outside the postseason, and Walker's one-year contract meant there was no guarantee the relationship would continue. When free agency arrived, the Nets re-signed several members of their roster but Walker moved on — later signing an Exhibit 10 with Boston that never became a Celtics chapter after he was waived. His Brooklyn chapter therefore lasted only one season and never produced anything as famous as his Lakers playoff takeover. Yet it quietly demonstrated something important. Walker didn't need a starting job or 30 minutes to score. Brooklyn gave him 17 minutes a night, usually asked him to create offense immediately, and he still nearly reached double figures while producing the best outside shooting percentage of his career. In Los Angeles, Skywalker became remembered for one incredible quarter. In Brooklyn, he showed he could provide that kind of spark all season.

    4. Philadelphia 76ers · 2025

      Free agent — February 21, 2025 — signed a 2-year rest-of-season contract with Philadelphia including a 2025–26 club option. Philadelphia declined the option June 29, 2025. Never played for Denver: August 5, 2026 one-year deal with DEN, waived October 12, 2026 — logged as exit contract events on this stint only.

      Lonnie Walker IV's arrival in Philadelphia made more sense when viewed through everything that happened before it. After a productive year in Brooklyn, Walker joined Boston for training camp in 2024 but was waived before the regular season. Rather than waiting indefinitely for another NBA opportunity, he made the boldest decision of his professional career and signed with Žalgiris Kaunas in Lithuania. The contract contained one particularly important detail: an NBA buyout clause that allowed Walker to leave for the league until February 18, 2025. He wasn't abandoning the NBA dream. He was creating another route back to it. Walker made the European stop count. In EuroLeague play, he averaged 13.6 points in 22.3 minutes across 19 games, showing that his athletic scoring could translate to a different style of basketball. He also shot 38.7% from three in Lithuanian league competition. Rather than disappearing overseas, Walker remained firmly on NBA radars while getting meaningful minutes in one of Europe's strongest basketball environments. Then came February 18 — the final day of his escape clause. Philadelphia, dealing with a season that had been overwhelmed by injuries, signed Walker to a two-year, $3 million contract, bringing the Reading, Pennsylvania native back to his home state. It was almost perfectly timed. Walker had spent months playing rather than waiting at home for a phone call, and the Sixers needed healthy perimeter players who could immediately create offense. His Philadelphia debut came on February 22 against Brooklyn, fittingly against his former team. Walker scored seven points in 19 minutes, but his role quickly grew as the Sixers' injury situation worsened. Joel Embiid's season ended because of his knee, Paul George was eventually shut down, and Philadelphia's expected contender season collapsed into a desperate attempt to find healthy bodies and evaluate whoever remained. For Walker, the chaos created opportunity. He responded with some of the strongest sustained production of his NBA career. Walker appeared in 20 games, averaging 12.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists in 26.5 minutes — a real rotation role on a roster scrambling for healthy wings, not a locked tip-off assignment. More impressively, he shot 42.3% from three on 5.6 attempts per game, easily the best outside shooting percentage of his NBA career. His athleticism was still there, but Philadelphia saw a more mature scorer than the one who had once relied heavily on explosive drives in San Antonio. One of his best nights came on March 29 against Miami, when Walker scored 29 points, knocking down five three-pointers while also collecting eight rebounds. It wasn't happening in meaningful playoff basketball — Philadelphia's season was already effectively lost — but Walker was playing for something meaningful personally. Only months earlier, he had been outside the NBA entirely. Now he was back in a rotation and producing career-level shooting numbers. The Sixers finished the season 24–58, nowhere near the championship expectations that had surrounded them in October. Walker couldn't change that. What he could change was his own trajectory. His Philadelphia chapter became proof that leaving for Europe hadn't represented a step backward. The unusual clause in his Žalgiris contract gave him a deadline to find his way home, and on the very last day it could be exercised, Philadelphia opened the door. Walker walked through it and immediately reminded the league why he belonged.