Much of the focus heading into the free agency period for the Los Angeles Lakers is on current Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving and whether or not he will be in purple and gold next season. But the Lakers do have some of their own free agents that they could try to re-sign and chief among them is guard Malik Monk.

Monk had a career year last season with the Lakers, becoming one of the team’s most consistent players with his ability to create offense for himself and others. But the Lakers are limited in what they could offer Monk as the most they could do is the taxpayer mid-level exception worth $6 million.

As an unrestricted free agent, Monk will likely command much more than that on the open market. But in an interview with Jovan Buha of The Athletic, Monk admitted that he would be willing to take less money in order to remain with the Lakers:

“They might not be able to pay me as much as I want,” Monk said. “But I could be here and be way more comfortable as a Laker than going to any other team and they’re paying me $5 million more. So it’s just me trying to figure out what team would really want me.”

Monk truly came into his own with the Lakers last season, averaging career-highs in points, rebounds, assists, steals and field goal percentage. He was a great compliment to both LeBron James and Anthony Davis and provides a knockdown shooter and scorer around the Lakers’ stars.

But while Monk is open to the idea of remaining with the Lakers, he is not ruling anything out in regards to free agency and plans to evaluate all possibilities:

“I definitely would still want to evaluate things,” Monk said. “You never know what happens. Some other team could come in and hopefully tell me the same thing and maybe I get a little bit more minutes on that team. So it’s just actually me being presented and being able to go out there and do what I do is a priority.