2019/20 Players' Transactions: Breaking News , Trades, Free Agents, And Rumors

A short listen about Deng, Clarkson, and a little Randle and whether we keep them until summer. All signs point to yes



Also, for the first time ever, actually hearing the prospect of LeBron playing with Lonzo, George, Ingram, Kuzma and whoever excited me. The idea of striking out in free agency is much more frightening than rooting for LeBron. And these guys, like realdeal has said, aren’t sure George would come join this group of kids without another star.

 

Clearly you didn’t listen as the audio is 15 mins long and instead chose to reply with your typical negative for negative sake comment. The point Trevor and Harrison make is that the Lakers have no incentive to trade JC or Randle now. Both can help us win games now, and if we dump them and don’t get anything valuable back we will really suffer having to play Ennis and Caruso more. The Lakers believe they can move JC in the summer, as in if they get word from LeBron to start making room, they do it then. Same with Randle, why trade him when if you strike out in free agency (or even if you don’t) you may want to retain him. Again, same with Deng, we don’t need to stretch him until we have exhausted all other options. The 2018 plan is fully alive, the point is the moves to make it happen don’t need to be made in February.

 

In terms of wins, I'd rather have Randle than just a draft pick. The problem is, I'm worried about losing Randle for nothing in July when I could have maybe got something for him in February. It might be worth the risk though if we strike out hard in FA.

Harrison brings up a point that some of us have been saying though: if you wait until the summer not only will you find teams are less inclined to help you get LeBron, but they're also probably offering less anyway as it is. You might be able to get a 1st for Clarkson in February, but a 2nd in July.

 

Lakers waive Deng.
Lakers renounce rights to Randle, Lopez, Pope, Brewer, Ennis, Bogut, and one of Bryant or Zubac.

Lakers have 58 million available which is the exact amount of room needed for George and Cousins. Literally two max slots doing nothing but what they have under their own power.

Try again.

 

I can do the math for you if you want.

Jordan Clarkson- 12.5 million
Luol Deng- 7.362 million
Lonzo Ball- 7.46196 million
Brandon Ingram- 5.75712 million
Larry Nance- 2.272391 million
Kyle Kuzma- 1.68984 million
Josh Hart- 1.65516 million
Thomas Bryant- 1.378242 million
Cap Holds- 3.26 million
Total- 43.34 million

Remainder= 57.66 million

Some cap shuffling gets you the extra .34 million you need. The estimates people are using is based off of the percentages that players make as max deals (25%, 30%, or 35%) but the contracts always come out slightly lower than that total due to the legislation behind the contract. So instead of 25.2 million, 30.3 million, or 35.35 million, the deal is more likely to be something like 24 million, 29 million, and 34 million.

Waive Bryant too if you have to, but again all within the confines of what the Lakers can do themselves. And if push come to shove and you have to trade Clarkson, all you have to do is send him out for less than 12.5 million back and you've got room for two max deals. You could trade him for Jared Dudley or Al Jefferson for all it matters and you'd clear up enough 1-2 million extra just in case, but that's really a "just in case".