Julius Randle Discussion: MIP

"We can't rely on PG and LeBron and Jules all taking paycuts...especially for a team that isn't contending yet."

 

Cleveland obviously had the lure of coming home. Kyrie was young but was coming off a stellar 3rd season and had signed a 5 year MAX contract and the team had just drafted Andrew Wiggins #1 (before turning him into Love a couple months later). So there was a lot of talent/elements that lured Lebron there. He took less than the MAX to join Miami because it was the only way to fit in him, Bosh and Wade. I really don't feel he would compare that to PG/Randle. Plus Lebron was upset at how Arison opted not to spend as much as he could around the big three and felt that was unacceptable after he took a discount.

Really though, I don't buy Lebron taking less than the MAX because it's been reported that he wouldn't. There was that December 2017 article from Ramona and Windhorst discussing it. Those two are as plugged in as any. Sure, that was months ago and things could change but honestly, I don't know that Lebron is so fascinated and hard up for Julius Randle that he - and PG - would take less than the MAX to accommodate him. Those two would presumably feel they can win a title without him, especially with the presence of Kuzma and that Lebron would spend a ton of time at PF anyhow.

 

Dude wanted to be the 1st Billionaire athlete years ago...and what followed was him not getting his true max in every opportunity he had till his last contract (3 year 100M after 1+1 deal to get back to Cleveland).

I see him doing the same thing here (ie 1+1) to get the cap structure to work so that we can field a legit contender around him. After that happens, we can operate as an over the cap team. He's plugged into know that if he and PG personally sacrifice roughly 5M between them off of their true max deals then the Lakers can keep Jules on the books. Dude can accomplish that via a 1+1 deal and then in 2019 he opts out and gets paid.

He wants Jules here, cause he mentioned him by name when LA first came to play Cleveland in December this last season...and with Jules here, Bron doesn't have to play 40+ minutes and that will only prolong his career.

Why lose an asset like Jules to only get paid roughly 3M more this coming year? Bron has shown that he's woke and there's no way he isn't considering a scenario of keeping an asset like Jules on the Lakers this summer, if he chooses to come on board to us.

 

For the record, when I reference the MAX, I'm not talking about getting the largest contract possible from the Lakers - which would be a 4 year contract. It's in relation to his salary next season because I fully acknowledge he could do a 1 + 1 deal. Whether he does that or 4 years, the MAX for next season remains the same and is what impacts the Lakers' ability to sign PG and re-sign Randle. To that extent, I maintain my opinion that I simply don't see Lebron taking any less than the MAX for next season. All this talking of him and/or PG taking less to accommodate Randle is based on what we would like to see and/or what we think makes sense for title contention but we've seen countless examples of stars simply getting the most cheddar they can and just expecting the front office to build around him. There is no indication on the end of Lebron or PG they are willing to take a discount.

 

Earning his raise...

 

@vasashi17 love your optimism but LeBron is not taking a paycut to accommodate Paul George and Julius Randle.

If he does...I'll leave this site for good

 

Let's just hope and pray that never happens! (You leaving, not the paycut)

 

There we go. We mock the "posers" from the DLO, Clarkson, Randle summers but damn with the long summer ahead let me see photos and clips of these guys working out. Nothing else going on.

 

Why are you so confident about him not doing a small discount when he has already done it twice? As did Bosh. And Wade. And Kevin Durant. And it would be to his advantage to have Randle here to take care of a lot of the physical contact for him on the court. That makes no sense unless you have some magic inside information from LBJ himself?

 

If I had to PickorChoose...



J/K...hopefully you stick around, but there's just too much precedence to ignore here.

Consider LaBron's supposed "list" of options: LA, the Land, Philly, Houston. Out of those, he can technically only get the max (35.6M in year 1) with either Cleveland or LA.

Houston is a damn near impossibility as a free agent and getting max, while keeping Capela, Cp3, Ariza and Moute. So either Cp3/Ariza sign for the minimum or Bron can't get the max. With Capela's 7M cap hold (ie making him a RFA and allowing Houston to match), Houston has just under 87M in committed salary...and that's without Cp3, Ariza and Moute. You have 14M in cap. Good luck splitting that amongst Bron, Cp3, Ariza, Moute.

Philly has 30M in cap space and that is if they allow JJ Redick, Amir Johnson, Belinilli and Ilyasova to walk. So they can't just outright sign Bron to his 35.6M max.

For LA, you stretch Deng (who clearly wasn't part of our core) + LaBron @ 35.6M max puts team salary at roughly 64M. This gives us 37M in cap. Waiving the non-guaranteed contracts of Ennis, Zu and TB (all these dudes are also not key contributors to our core) opens up another 4.5M. Let's just attempt to make it less favorable to us and round it down to 40M in available cap. George's max is 30.3M. Jules's cap hold is 12.4M, so we'll need roughly 43M to make it work. George would essentially have to shave roughly 3M off the top to get Bron the max.

People tend to forget that Bron can't ask for the max and simply step onto a team this summer. If he takes the max, then surely he's joining a team that will be a shell of what it was this year. So ask yourself, would Bron want to join a team with key pieces of the core gone if he chooses the max? He certainly has to be interested in retaining as many key parts to that core as possible, since he envisions joining that team and not gutting it just to wear the name on the front of the jersey to only take it off in April/early May next year.

 

When Lebron James took less than the MAX with Miami in 2010, he had a first year salary of 14.5M. The same figure that Bosh took. Wade took even less at 14.2M. The MAX for the first year was 16.57M. So they each took discounts. Worth noting is that they made some of that back in FL given no state income tax. Not to mention these were 3 stars and friends who conspired to join each other and make a "Super Team" and the financial concession was necessary. I just don't link this 2010 situation to the 2018 Lakers situation.

When Lebron James took less than the MAX with CLE in 2014, it was in terms of fewer years. He didn't take a discount on the MAX first year salary of 20.644M. So if applied to the Lakers, this same scenario wouldn't help at all in the discussion of freeing cap space to retain Randle.

I can't say for sure Lebron won't take a discount because I don't know the guy personally but in my viewpoint, I'm not linking what he did with MIA/CLE to what he would potentially do in LA. If people want to believe he would take a discount, go for it. I'm just not that optimistic he will and as much as I like Randle, I'm perfectly fine if Lebron and PG take the MAX and we have to sacrifice Randle in the process. It's not the absolutely perfect scenario we all dream of but after the crap offseasons the Lakers have had the last few years when it comes to free agency, I'm not about to be disheartened that all the Lakers did was add Lebron and Paul George.

 

The 2018-2019 cap is said to be 101M
If the Lakers stretch Deng + add in the contracts of Ball, Ingram, Kuzma, Hart, #25 pick + Randle's cap hold + waive all their team options/renounce all their FAs + sign Lebron to the MAX, that is roughly 74M. So doing the math, it looks like you have 27M in cap space and PG just needs to shave off 3M. However, this doesn't take into account roster holds. That 74M is just for 7 players, so the team has to hold cap space for 5 roster spots, which is the minimum salary - equating to about a loss of 4M in cap space. So factoring in that, the Lakers would actually have only 23M in cap space at this point to approach PG and suffice to say he's not likely to take an 7Mish discount. Which brings up back to the discussion of PG and Lebron both needing to take discounts (7Mish total for next season between them) to retain Randle and the diverging opinions on how likely that ends up being the case.

 

I'm not perfectly fine with sacrificing Randle and these two guys not shaving a little off because they both would be better off with him here by far. And he has to sacrifice as well. Randle will be beastlier and more talented next year and every year after barring injury. Same as barring injury with them. Either they really are all three about "the Ring" or they're only about bottom line the money. James one would think is pretty motivated to add another ring or two before hanging it up so it's not always thrown in his face he only got 3 while Magic and Kareem and Jordan and Kobe of the modern era all got a bunch more than him. Leaving Horry out of this. IMO.

 

I'm all for optimism but seeing Kobe take that huge extension several months after tearing his achilles tendon knowing full well how much it would cripple the Lakers ability to build around him and help him chase a 6th ring, which you would think would be important to someone who talks about legacy and all that stuff, has truly jaded me on the concept of players putting $ before rings. Yeah it's happened a few times - and I give mad respect to Duncan/Dirk for their later in NBA life team friendly deals - but I just prefer to prepare myself and put myself in the mindset where I'm very pleasantly surprised if it happens that Lebron/PG take a discount rather than being disappointed if it doesn't.

 

JR doing it the right way in the gym already. Give that man his money.

Now we need to see clips of Zo in a gym, not with Lavar, prepping for the season. I’m sure Kuz, BI, and Hart have already started.

 

Eddie. Since we're affecting nothing here of course and only guessing .... sure there's a method to your preparing so you're not disappointed. Just fan preferences. I'll hold out hope for the common sense of it being a good thing to keep Randle if those 2 guys both come. And if I get disappointed oh well. I just feel Magic and Rob are going to be very smart about all of this and am placing a good bit of faith in them.

 

@EddieEddie Bron was an 11th year vet when he hit 2014 free agency. He was allowed 35% of the cap (63.07M) as a non-bird FA so his max would have been 22.1M in year 1. So technically he did not get his max in year 1 and since he was a non bird, he signed a 1+1 deal. He then opted out the next year and signed a max deal of 3y 100M but technically that wasn't even a max contract since as an early bird, he could have signed a 4 year deal. As you mentioned, in Miami he took less than his true max since they were all trying to fit into cap space...which is no different than his return to Cleveland. Deng and his 14M were coming off of the Cavs books. So the Cavs had roughly 44M in team salary and with a 63M salary cap only had about 20M to spend on Bron in free agency.

Now lets just make it simple and look at our books: stretched out Deng @ 7.4 + Zo, BI, Kuz, Hart @ 16.7 + Jules cap hold @ 12.4 + Incomplete roster charge of 5 spots (after signing Bron/PG) @ 4M = 40.5M. That gives us roughly 60.5M in cap space. Bron's max is 35.6M and PG's max is 30.3M, so the Lakers need roughly 66M to get these guys their true max year 1 salaries. However with roughly 60.5M in cap space, these dudes would have to split the difference of 5.5M between them to all fit into our cap construct...again, no different than what Bron did in Miami with Bosh and Wade and again in Cleveland when they only had roughly 20M in cap space to spend.

 

According to this article: http://nba.nbcsports.com/2014/07/09/value-of-max-contracts-for-2014-nba-free-agents/
The MAX contract for a 10+ year vet was a 1st year salary of 20.644M - which was what Lebron got.
(Compared to 17.695M for a 7 to 9 vet)

It's different in the sense that PG and Randle are not Bosh and Wade.
Unless PG won a ring, a Finals MVP and is coming off an All-NBA 1st team and All-Defense 2nd team selection.
Unless Randle is coming off a 24ppg 10.8rpg season and 5 straight All-Star appearances.
(Point being, the Miami situation was better - that's the difference)

Also as I noted, FL has no state income tax so he makes back a good chunk of change making a discount more palatable