Cousins, Cook agree to sign with Lakers

Freeagent center DeMarcus Cousins has agreed to a oneyear, $3.5 million contract with the Lakers, league sources have confirmed with The Chronicle.

ESPN was first to report the news.

He will be joined in Los Angeles by former Warriors teammate Quinn Cook, who agreed Saturday to a twoyear, $6 million deal with the Lakers, according to a league source.

Cousins, 28, agreed to terms with the Lakers on Saturday, the morning after they missed out on freeagent forward Kawhi Leonard, who is signing with the Clippers. The Lakers have been busy rounding out their roster with the $32 million in salarycap space they had set aside for Leonard.

The Heat reportedly had interest in Cousins, but he decided to sign with the Lakers after talking with Anthony Davis, who played with Cousins in New Orleans. This marks the end of a disappointing freeagency period for Cousins. After an upanddown 201819 season with the Warriors, he had widely been expected to sign a contract in the range of $8 million to $10 million, with the Knicks being his most likely suitor. But when forward Kevin Durant announced plans to leave the Warriors to sign with the Nets, the Knicks opted to sign Julius Randle instead of Cousins. There was minimal interest in Cousins from other teams, even on a midlevel contract.

Reports have surfaced in recent weeks about Cousins being problematic behind the scenes with the Warriors. Intent to resuscitate his market value after nearly a year sidelined by an Achilles injury, he grew frustrated at times with his role in Golden State’s offense.

This news came weeks after an underwhelming Finals in which Cousins appeared out of sorts coming back from a quad injury. Although the Warriors initially considered bringing him back next season if he fell into their price range (they could offer no more than $6.36 million), that possibility was quashed when they acquired AllStar guard D’Angelo Russell in a signandtrade deal with the Nets.

No team that acquires a player through a signandtrade can eclipse a total payroll just shy of $139 million. After last Sunday’s frenzy, the Warriors had roughly $10 million to pay six more players. That spelled the end of Golden State’s run with Cousins, Cook, Jordan Bell and Shaun Livingston.

The Warriors had wanted to bring back Cook and tendered him a $1.9 million qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent, but they rescinded their offer after the signandtrade with Brooklyn.

Bell agreed to a oneyear deal with the Timberwolves, and Livingston is expected to be traded or waived before his $7.7 million contract for next season becomes fully guaranteed on Wednesday.

The Warriors have 12 players projected on the 201920 roster, only three of whom — Stephen Curry (31), Klay Thompson (29) and Draymond Green (29) — are older than 25.

Thompson is expected to miss at least the first couple of months of next season recovering from an ACL injury.

Connor Letourneau is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cletourneau@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Con_Chron

Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle The Warriors had designs on keeping DeMarcus Cousins (left) and Quinn Cook, but salary cap issues made that unworkable.