The Stretch

Aloha,

While everyone would love to see a Westbrook trade that would bring back a couple of decent players, there is no guarantee that a trade will materialize. You look at all the teams that might want to shed salary, there is reason to believe they could shed those contracts without having to eat to Westbrooks huge contract. A lot of those players maybe useful to other teams.

So what should the Lakers do if a trade does not materialize? Everything I’ve read so far doesn’t close the door on a waive and stretch. Now Russ probably won’t leave a lot of money on the table unless his agent finds a deal, but at least for now, that doesn’t look likely. But just to get out of the Lakers would he be willing to give up say 5 mil? If so this will be the best year in the next few to have money to spend. Money will be near historically tight this summer. The wave and stretch would give us about 13 mil in cap space. Plus we would have the full 10.2 MLE and the 4 mil bi annual to spend. That’s 27 mil and this year that could be huge. It is conceivable we could actually come away with a better, deeper group then some of these trades. The added bonus of course we would maintain our trade assets. Now it will be hard to become a contender but we could easily be a much better group.