Why should the Los Angeles Lakers settle for a Superstar Big Three when there’s a legitimate chance they can create the NBA’s first Superstar Big Four with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kyle Lowry, and DeMar DeRozan?
The odds of the Lakers pulling off deals to land both Lowry and DeRozan may be long and depend on the loyal and grateful Toronto Raptors and San Antonio Spurs working to get Kyle and DeMar to their desired destinations. While there’s an interest from Lowry and DeRozen to join the Lakers, the path to acquire them would require both players to agree to take a pay cut over what they’re currently making and agree to a sign-and-trade to LA.
Here’s how the Lakers could add Lowry and DeRozan to James and Davis, how they could fill out the rest of the roster despite being hardcapped, and why a Superstar Big Four could well portend the NBA’s next dynasty.
ADDING LOWRY AND DEROZAN
The only way the Lakers can acquire Kyle Lowry is via a sign-and-trade with the Toronto Raptors. The Lakers have two options for acquiring DeMar DeRozan: sign-and-trade for him or sign him for the $9.5 million full MLE.
Since receiving a player via a sign-and-trade automatcially hardcaps a team, the Lakers will have to keep total salaries, including the $5 million left on the books from Luol Deng, under the $142.9 million hard cap for 2021–22. Adding both Lowry and DeRozan is possible if the Lakers can limit their combined starting annual salaries under $35 million and move Kuzma, Caldwell-Pope, Horton-Tucker, and Harrell if he exercises his player option.
If the Lakers were successful in creating a Superstar Big Four with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kyle Lowry, and DeMar DeRozan, they would immediately become championship favorites for the 2021–22 season.
FILLING OUT THE FULL ROSTER
After building a Superstar Big Four with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, the Lakers will only have $27.8 million left under the $142.9 million hard cap to fill out the rest of their roster.
There are two options for the Lakers to fill out the roster. In the first option, Los Angeles sign-and-trades for Kyle Lowry, straight trades for Reggie Bullock, and then signs DeMar DeRozan to the full Mid Level Exception. The Lowry trade clears Schroder, Kuzma, and Horton-Tucker from the roster and the Bullock trade clears Caldwell-Pope and Harrell. With 4 superstars, Gasol, and pick, the Lakers need at least six more players to have 12.
In the second option, Los Angeles reduces their sign-and-trade offer for Lowry by $5 million, uses the extra money to sign-and-trade DeRozan for $15 million, and then signs Reggie Bullock for the full Mid Level Exception. The Lowry and Bullock trades clear the salaries of Schroder, Kuzma, Horton-Tucker, Caldwell-Pope and Harrell from the Lakers’ salary cap, giving them the cap space for the six players to fill out the roster to 12 players.
While the above rosters only have 12 active players, the Lakers can either try to free up another $3.4 million to add two more players or they can sign two new players to two-way contracts to provide two extra bodies.
BUILDING THE NEXT DYNASTY
A starting lineup of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, and Reggie Bullock would be a huge upgrade over last year’s starting fivesome and set the stage for another Lakers’ dynasty.
The Lakers would be replacing the Schroder and Caldwell-Pope backcourt that only made 3.0 threes out of 7.9 attempts per game with the Lowry and Bullock backcourt that averaged 5.3 threes out of 13.3 attempts per game. That would result in a 68.3% increase in 3-point takes and 76.7% increase in 3-point makes by the Lakers backcourt. Making 2.3 additional 3-point shots per game would boost LA’s offensive output by 7 points per game.
Transforming the Lakers’ backcourt from low volume, low percentage to high volume, high percentage would eliminate the Lakers’ negative 3-point differential and opens the door to add DeMar DeRozan at small forward. Starting DeRozan would give the Lakers a lethal midrange jump shooter who can close games and get his shot against any defender like his mentor Kobe Bryant or stars like Kawhi Leonard, Chris Paul, and Devin Booker.
The Lakers will be looking at multiple options for rebuilding their roster but creating a Superstar Big Four with James, Davis, Lowry, and DeRozan plus Bullock could set the stage for the Los Angeles Lakers next dynasty.
While it might appear that the Lakers’ chances of landing Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan are slim, it’s hard to imagine the Toronto Raptors or the San Antonio Spurs not being willing to reward two players whose great careers were synonomous with their franchises’ success.
Both players are future Hall of Famers who are unrestricted free agents for whom the Raps and Spurs would get nothing if they signed anywhere as free agents. Toronto has already said they would help Kyle get to where he wants to go and I can’t believe the Spurs would not be willing to do the same for DeMar despite their hatred of the Lakers. It’s not like KCP and Harrell would not be great fits on the Spurs.
It’s hard to pinpoint what the Lakers or other teams are going to do because there are so many factors still in play. Ideally, the Lakers would somehow get Lowry, DeRozan, and Bullock to give up $3.4 million so the Lakers could add Trevor Ariza and DeMarcus Cousins to bring their roster to 14 active players. I have to think all three of them could see the huge potential to create a dynasty if the Lakers could add them to LeBron and AD.
At any rate, just another example of the kind of rosters the Lakers could build despite being hard capped. Eric Pincus’ comments about the Lakers possibly being willing to be hardcapped and their history of minimizing how much luxury taxes they are willing to play reinforce the idea that the Lakers might perfer to be hard capped rather than pay the kind of luxury taxes thast will be assessed agsinst the Warriors and Nets.
Thanks for the post, Tom. While the starting five you mentioned is a no-brainer, there has to be a strong consideration for the makeup of the bench as well. Great teams always have a dependable bench to maintain continuity. A good starting five with a thin bench is not a blueprint for success, and will only make us pay the piper.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Buba. I do believe the Lakers’ Achilles heel last year after injuries was the inconsistent performance of the non-superstar starters: Schroder, KCP, Gasol/Drummond. That was exposed in the playoffs.
If you look at the depth chart built into the salary graphics you should love the bench of Patty Mills, Alex Caruso, Wes Matthews, Markieff Morris, and Marc Gasol. Four returning player from last year’s bench with a real point guard who can shoot and run the offense in Mills. That’s great continuity. Mills is the difference maker for the bench but it’s definitely the starting lineup that is the key in my opinion.
Nice proposal with sufficient details.
Two comments:
1) I’d prefer getting JJ Reddick on vet min than Carmelo.
2) I’m sure AD will refuse to play 5 consistently. His philosophy is to not get banged up during the regular season by the opposing bigs! I think the Lakers admin has already yielded to him on that, in return for his acceptance to play 5 when needed in the playoffs.
Othersie I’ll be happy to get Lowry and DeRozan.
But I might prefer it if we can get Lonzo and Hield instead. Can we work the numbers for that and compare? I think Lonzo’s youth and ability to playmake are attractive to me. And he has improved his shooting a lot!
And Hield is the best 3 point shooter in the NBA. I think we might be able to get Hield for Kuz, Trezz and the ’21 (first rd) pick, and get Lonzo for KCP, THT and the ’26 pick (by making the Pels settle on the ’24 pick from before). Fill the rest with vet mins, including Dwight.
Finally, I can think of a three star Lakers team which will be better than either of these scenarios. And that would be spearheaded by Bron, AD and Beal. If that’s possible, that would be my first choice by a mile, and I hope Rob is thinking about it now!
Thanks for the hard work you’ve put in.
Dean
Hey, Dean, thanks for reading and commenting.
I would be up for J.J. Reddick and assume he is still capable of lighting it up.
It will be interesting to see how much center AD plays this year. You may be right but I also think AD may understand that he will have to play more center for the Lakers to win now. And if the Lakers are planning to move LeBron to the 4 and AD to the 5, as Stein says, then you can be sure that plan has already been run by LeBron and AD. I have my fingers crossed but frankly will believe it when I see it. But it’s the right move.
I love the idea of Lonzo and Buddy and would be up for that. Fits Michael’s younger rather than older, which I don’t disagree with as long as we’re not talking about 22-year old point guards with 1.57 assists to turnover ratio.
Lonzo and Buddy vs. Kyle and DeMar? I still think Kyle and DeMar are better and won’t cost millions in luxury taxes. But give me either and I would be a happy camper. Lots of good options. Will be a game of musical chairs. I’ll work out the cost of that lineup and post it later.
Yeah, calling Kyle and DeMar superstars is a stretch for sure and Beal or a true superstar Big Three would probably be better. However, I do love the idea of Lowry and Bullock providing the 3-point shooting takes and makes and DeMar getting clutch midrange buckets to close games.
Have to admire your number crunching LT. While this looks and feels like the longest of longshots it’s within the realm of numerical reality. I always have a hard time seeing guys who are in their prime (DeRozan, Mills, Bullock) willingly walk away from potentially more money. They don’t go into the offseason wondering “How can I get myself on the Lakers and team up with ‘Bron and AD?” They wonder how many 0’s will be at the end of a number, what their role will be if it’s a new team and then assess the roster to see if they think they can carry it across the line. You don’t get as good as DeMar is by not believing you don’t have all the tools necessary to change the title fortunes of a team single-handidly.
As you noted, the Spurs/Laker animosity is real. Very difficult to see them helping us in any way but if they covet those 2 players I suppose it’s possible. I think they’d rather trade with Mars than us but seeing as Mars doesn’t have a team in the Association they may be forced to dance with the devil, as it were.
The part where I actually feel like this bogs down a little is in the role-players all accepting that little money. Kieff fielded better offers last season and I expect he will again. Back to back vet minimums feels unlikely but then you can just play the “Who Wnats the Vet Min to play in LA” game and see what comes out at the end. Alex will get more than $5 mil tossed his way, is he that all in on the Lakers? Maybe, maybe that Man Scultping deal is enough to keep him hoping for an endorsement or two elsewhere? Those guys will never see LeBron money and need to max out the money when they can. AC has his ring, he won’t ever have to field the Barkley question now and his skillset is difficult to replace.
I like that you have us keeping the pick in this particular scenario which I also believe we will do. There has to be some form of team building every season, it is possible to be in win now mode and not utterly sacrifice the future of the team.
The final critique I have comes back to my philosophy that you only hard cap for a bona fide superstar. These guys are All Stars, DeRozan could still find another level from three since he’s such a good shooter and free throw shooter. Lowry could find the fountain of youth but neither really fills out the superstar resume’. The restrictions you impose by hard capping will make it really difficult to tweak the roster should it fall flat on it’s face. The only meaningful contracts are all the players you went all in for and if they under-perform on the Lakers who would want to fork over players of impact for that type of return? You can’t participate in the buy out market (which I strongly suspect will feature Rondo). The hard cap isn’t the worst thing that can happen but it certainly makes it easier to move talent at the trade deadline, participate in the buyout market and retain our own free agents.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Jamie.
Yeah, it’s so easy to spend OPM. In this case, it’s the players’ money more than the team’s money since the Lakers would be hardcapped. But both players have indicated they understand at this point in their career they need to be willilng to take less.
Lowry is said to be looking for 3-years at $20 to $25 million and DeMar has said he would take a discount but not how much from the $27M he made with Spurs last season. Estimates of his market value have been around $17 million. That’s what I based my S&T values on. And that only gets us to 12 players.
I do think both Lowry and DeRozan will be interested in Lakers. I also think obtaining both of them makes total sense. Lowry’s high volume, high percentage 3-point shooting and the Lakers decision (hopefully) to move LeBron and AD to the 4 and 5 open the door to include an elite midrange scrorer like DeMar. We know there’s a place for that kind of player on the Lakers if they solve their shooting woes, which Bullock and Lowry would do.
I’m not so sure that role players are going to want more other than Caruso, who deservs more but is also helped immensely by playing with LeBron and THT, whom the Lakers are going to take care of because of Klutch. The other guys will be fine with the minimum.
Remember it’s only the minimum salary of a 2-year vet player that is charged to a team’s salary cap. The rest of the scheduled pay that’s dependent on the numbers of years played is paid by the league and not charged against the team’s salary cap. And the minimum salaries are prorated, which is why the Lakers will have no problem adding minimum players from buyout market although they won’t be able to pay more than the minimum.
I’m keeping the pick because this is a deep draft and there are some excellent prospects out there and the pick is cheaper than a vet minimum player. I did give up THT rather than the shooter because he’s key to getting Lowry and I worry about his 3-point shooting. I don’t believe Lowry is Steve Nash 2.0. He still is playing and shooting like the future HOFer he is.
I generally agree with your don’t hardcap unless it’s for a superstar but when I look at the starting five and reserve five in this lineup, I see a dramatically better shooting and scoring team that hasn’t given up much at all on the defensive end.
Yes, it will be difficult to tweak the lineup during the season but the strategy is to upgrade the starting lineup but keep the reserves together except with a replacement for the missing Rondo, which is what going after Patty Mills would provide. While Big Four is great for the title, the Lakers would still have a legitimate Superstar Big Three with Kyle Lowry. In fact, there Big Three would all have won championships in the last three years.
Lowry and Derozan aren’t even stars, much less superstars. They’d have never made the ASG in the west. The teams results in the absence of Lebron and AD with those two may have been a game or two better, possibly worse with Lowry’s tendency to get nicked up too.
Aloha, while your trades work on paper there are too many moving parts for it to really work. The first problem the NBA minimum roster is 13. So you need to add at least an undrafted rookie. You can only suit 12 for a game so perhaps that what you are thinking. Next Caruso will be gone at 5 mil. His market value is full MLE. This will be his first big contract and I have a hard time believing he will take a nearly 5 mil discount. An even bigger issue is a trade with the Spurs. Pop is still pissed off over the Pau trade. When we tried to trade for Kawai he basically asked for all of our players and draft picks forever and ever. And that was a guy that helped them win a championship. Like Kawai Derosen wants to go home but I can’t see Pop doing him any favors. We will also have competition for ring chasers. There several teams that be seen as contenders so there will be MLE money available for a lot of them.
LOL. OK, I’ll keep going deeper into the rabbit hole.
I actually think the Lakers need to have at least 14 players on the roster so they need to save $3.4 million from Lowry, Bullock, or DeRozan for the plan to really work.
As for Caruso, he would be smart to take what the Lakers offer because he’s much better fit for playing with LeBron on the Lakers than anywhere else. He’ll sign for a home town discount and he’s not the untouchable that you and his GOAT fans seem to believe he is. Grasss won’t be greener for him somewhere else.
The only way this trade works is if Kyle and DeMar want it to work. If they do, I don’t see Masai or Pops wanting to get in the way of they’re going to the Lakers, especially if they’re getting two good players for their star rather than losing them for nothing in free agency.