European Football and NBA economics are almost impossible to compare due to transfers. You have your salary for the players, but in order to get other players, you rarely trade one of yours for one of theirs. You buy them. Barcelona bought players with reckless abandon. They spent 142 million pounds on Philippe Coutinho...that's not taking into account any of his salary. He barely played for them. They also bought a lot of other players without selling enough to balance that out. Their only large sale was Neymar, but even he wasn't big enough to cover the costs of all their transfers. Add to that the fact that there is no salary cap, only a toothless FFP provision. Barca paid Messi 162 million the last four years.....PER SEASON.
It would be a fun Hall of Fame lineup to roll out, just to see what it looks like Dwight AD Melo Bron Westbrook
We'll put some chairs for them on the court so they can play some chess. It would look just like this:
Good point. That contract for Schroder would be double the one we didn't want to give Caruso. So we value Schroder more than 2 times Caruso? Give me a break. Caruso was a basketball decision and a bad one. In June 21, Lakers were valued 5.5 billion! Buss family owns 66% so around 3.8 billion. They are worried with 150M?
Typical depth chart with everybody healthy (as of right now): PF: James (34) Anthony (14) SF: Ariza (24) Bazemore (24) C: Davis (34) Howard (14) PG: Westbrook (34) Nunn (14) SG: Ellington (24) THT (24)
That would kick in next season as it's 3 out of 4 years of paying the tax. We weren't paying the tax until last season
^ We can trade him for old Magic Johnson, so he can play some small ball center for us. Needs to lose some fat though.
You’re completely correct, you can’t compare one to another. European football teams don’t have caps or transfer systems etc etc. Barcelona also has almost 2.5x the yearly revenue of the Lakers so some of these moves look different if the revenue were equal. Today, Barça announced that Messi has to leave because under La Liga and FFP rules, they don’t have the money to sign him. This would be like us letting Kobe go in 2010. Either way the point is more that you have to be conscious of the economics of managing a team so the product doesn’t drop. This recent valuation comes from one of our owners, Phil Anschutz (AEG) selling their 27% stake. The valuation is only the worth of something, it doesn’t show you the owners ability to run the team with positive cash flow. This is a very simplistic way of looking at it without all the inside info. However, In 2019/2020, the Lakers had a yearly revenue of $400m, and out of that we had an operating income of $150m. From that $150m we have to pay an amount to the league for revenue sharing, it’s probably about $30-50m. (This revenue sharing is what allows all the small market teams to stay alive because owners won’t be funneling $30-60m into teams yearly for the pleasure of not making the playoffs.) After revenue sharing, you have to take away our team’s interest, government taxes and depreciation. So net profit could be anywhere from $60-100m for the Lakers. The buss family keeps 66% of that. The other Laker’s owners want a return on their investments, they don’t want to funnel money into the Lakers. So I imagine there is a minimum net profit that the team is expected to run at. Essentially when we complain about going into luxury tax, we’re asking the Buss family who make $40-$60m a year (and still have personal tax to pay on this) and mostly Jeanie who probably makes a quarter of that to fund any of our overspending basically. In ownership terms, the Buss family are poor and just can’t do that over the long term. So if we run up a $150m luxury tax bill to the league. The Lakers can’t really afford it, especially over for the long term. What we can afford is the 30-50m that we are prepared to do.
I saw people comment about GSW as well, they’re a huge market with a far wealthier owner. And with their new stadium, they have the most amount of revenue in the NBA - second only to the cowboys in revenue among all USA sports teams. They actually have more spending power than us.
He doesn’t care he’s in it to make trades and move players here and there regardless of what Pelinka has planned and put together. Notice he’s already spoken about it and gotten rid of Gasol too.
this is all useful and accurate, but it doesn't really affect my opinion. these folks are capitalizing on their ownership left and right in ways that aren't represented here. consider it an investment in your future. two more lebron titles cements you as the glamour franchise and secures your next tv deal. i wonder if even they know how close they were to oblivion before lebron signed here for no good reason* *just kidding. we know the reason. and that benefits the owners, too.
Yet, they choose to take a 2y/91M contract for the 3rd best player of the team. That's good cost management. Don't buy it. Huge market? Bigger than LA? Come on
I'm not sure what to say to your first comment. Westbrook is owed $44.2m this year, we packaged Trez, KCP and Kuzma for $35.7m. So we only added $8.5m in additional payroll for that move. We've taken the three star approach with minimum players around them instead of the two star and solid players approach. To me this isn't a cost management point, but rather a team building philosophy approach. If we don't package Schroder for something big, then it's clear we can't afford to. Regarding your second point, I didn't say their market was bigger than LA. I said their revenue was bigger than ours and it is. They own their stadium - we don't. So they'll be making more income and net profit than us. I also said their owner was wealthier and Joseph Lacob is definitely wealthier than the Buss family. No shame in either of these things. In regards to market size. The Bay Area vs LA County is a big discussion that I don't want to get into. But it's clear that the Bay Area has out performed LA county economically over the last few decades. They are a bigger market by GDP, income per capita and household income. They have superior job growth, wage growth and are a dominant driving force of the Californian economy, which is a huge proponent of the overall US economy. We have celebrities who have more social influence, but they have tech entrepreneurs who are just wealthier. So I don't see the issue with calling the Bay Area an absolutely huge market?
Great points @svtzr I think it's a bit unfair to expect the Buss family, who individually earns around $5-10M annually, to gift players like Caruso a contract that would flatten their salary. The Lakers are worth billions, but the Buss family have no intention of selling. Not in their lifetime anyway. Their annual income is basically their wealth. I think they deserve a bit more respect.
If the Lakers share is worth 3.8 billion then the Buss family should really sell if there are only making 5-10million each every year. If they lose a chunk in taxes on a sale and are left with say 3 billion, just a 5% rate of return annually would give them 150 million a year and that would taxed at the max at low capital gains rate
So crazy to think Westbrook, AD, Melo, Lebron were on the 2012 Olympic team. Dwight was with Lebron and Melo 2008. Olympic games opportunities for these all stars to link up
I think they just love the lakers and have no plans to sell. AEG had first right of purchase if the Buss family was ever going to get out, and they're selling their share right now, which makes me think they know the Buss family has no plans to sell. I agree. In a lot of ways, I find their commitment to putting out a winning product and being the premier organisation in the league commendable!
