Aloha,
Tom posted an article about the Lakers not needing Kyrie and I completely agree. It got me thinking. If we denounced all of players not under full contracts we would only have around 30 mil. Not enough for Kyrie or building a better team. And the new CBA makes trading for a super star, super hard.
While one can argue that as constructed this roster isn’t championship level, with all the new restrictions, it’s probably the best we can do. Two things that will work in our favor is there is not a lot of money out there this year. Only rebuilding squads have a lot of cap space. The other is the cap will jump 10% the following year due to the new TV deal. Here is where we stand:
Under full contracts
LBJ
AD
Max
That is a combined salary of $95,688,850. See the problem? The projected cap for next year is 132 mil. The projected tax apron is $164 mil. But there is a new wrinkle if you go over the apron by $17.5 mil you lose your MLE. This makes it even harder to spend.
Free agents with bird rights:
DLO
Austin
Rui
Gabriel (early bird rights)
I believe we will retain all 4. With so little cap space out there this is a bad year for DLO to become a free agent. He is too old for the rebuilders. I think 25 to 30 mil will probably get it done. Because of the Arinas rule no one can offer Austin more then 12 mil the first two years. He can be offered a big raise the last two. Austin is not going anywhere. Rui’s current market appears to be $15 to $18 mil. He will also be back. Gabriel won’t be offered a huge amount. He is the perfect energy bench guy for us.
Players with Team options or non guaranteed deals.
Vando
Beasley
Bamba
Shaq Harrison
At a little under 5 mil, Vando is a no brainer. I watched Harrison in the G league. He is a good defender and at a veteran min would be decent end of the bench guy. I have always like Beasley’s game but since coming here he hasn’t given us much. Some guys are just not cut out for the bright lights I guess. Bamba at 10 mil is over paid for what he brings. Both could be cut. They would have to be guaranteed before they can be traded. I’m sure Rob is testing the trade waters now. You can’t trade until your season is over but you can talk.
Guys with no bird right.
Dennis
Lonnie
Troy
All 3 out played their contract. We probably will lose them since we have to fit them into non existent cap space. We could perhaps use the MLE of 7 mil to keep Dennis. He is a very good back up PG and we probably could not do better. We would probably have to cut either Bamba or Beasley in order to have the MLE available.
We have the 17th pick and a mid 2nd round pick available. That’s about 4.5 mil in first year salaries.
There will be 3 two way contracts available this year. That’s great news for the Lakers considering our success at finding hidden gems. Pippin Jr was one of the best G league players last year. I would give him one of the slots, if not an end of the bench slot.
The core I’m sure will be back is
LeBron
AD
Austin
DLO
Rui
Vando
Max
Gabriel
That is a good start but it will be a challenge building a quality 2nd unit. And with LeBron and AD’s injury history a solid bench is a must. We will need:
A quality back up PG( Dennis?)
A solid defensive center
At least one scoring wing
Can we find them with trades? Can we draft a plug and play player at 17 in the draft. Is there a ring chasing vet with a little left in the tank? Can we rehabilitate a young player like we did with Troy and Lonnie?
These are the questions that will have to be answered. The good news is that we haven’t had a quality returning core for some time. Austin, Rui, Max , Vando and Gabriel will all improve. I finally have a good feeling about this team moving forward. It’s been a few years since that was the case.
Freebies I believe are (currently reasonable price): Clarky, Kuz, Wood and Vucevic. LaVine will want out, but how?
Almost no chance unless you want to cut just about everyone. Let me ask you this. Would we be better with LaVine. Or would we be better with DLO, Austin, Vando and Rui. That’s your choice. To get LaVine we need to sign and trade. That hard caps you so we would not be able to sign those other guys. Wood is so bad defensively that the Mav’s don’t want him back. He couldn’t even start for them. We already have the best center in the league, we don’t need Vuc. Another poor defender. Clarkson will opt out. We don’t have the cap space to sign him. So that would require a trade. We don’t have anyone making enough to trade. We can’t trade Beasley back to the Jazz for a year. And if we did a sign and trade, again that hard caps us and we lose other guys. Like I said in the post, we don’t have a lot of options other than keeping our own guys.
Michael, I am okay with keeping our current guys and adjusting as needed.
Like the 4 amentioned, but we’ll see. Lakers Chip or bust. Kinda thinking if we don’t win it all, perhaps a shakeup. Trade the oft undependable AD to Chicago for TS Lavine and Vucevic? We’ll see what Kuz is worth or not $$ wise. Most of us were talking highly about Beaser, Brown-jr and Walker at one point.
Great recap, Michael. Much will depend on how far we go this season, which will impact how much Jeanie will be willing to pay in luxury taxes. We get to a point where adding a $5M player is adding $20M so the system does work and the league doubled down on making it even more onerous to go way over.
I would hope the Lakers would be willing to go up to $85M in taxes which would enable us to do much of what you have outlined. We could get lucky in spend less but a lot will depend on making great picks to fill those holes. I would also prioritize Dennis with the MLE although there have been rumors the Lakers like Trey Lyles a lot and he’s a Klutch client.
There are some centers in the draft that could be perfect for us so I would keep the pick. If we need to trade the pick along with Mo and Malik for legit 3&D wing to start, I’d give up the 2029 pick. Makes sense right now for us to use that for a back up rim protector.
Bottom line, Rob should win EOY for the makeover he executed, what that means for the team going forward, and the flexibility we got to make additional moves this summer. One hell of a turn around. Better than even I expected on my most optimistic day.
Great post Michael. The new CBA is actually favorable towards this current Lakers team being kept intact. Still got some playoffs ahead of us so things could change a little. Malik could go for 30 one game and swing a series all by himself, Bamba could shine on down the line (if the role is there, no guarantee) or someone could regress mightily. All in all, I don’t see anything drastic like that happening.
We live and die by AD and LeBron, the rest are helpful, to be sure, especially when faced with an ever-aging LeBron which won’t get any better next season. Honestly it won’t surprise me if AD or James requires a major surgery at some point next season given the nature of their respective injuries.
Kevin Love could be a vet minimum nab and fits into what we do well. Same goes for Schroeder (as you say i could see us using some/all of our MLE to retain his services). The main thing I like is the CBA all but nixed the “three superstars” dream for almost every team that doesn’t currently have 3 already. Even the Warriors will be hard-pressed to keep this all together.