Restricted or not they just signed vucevic to a $54 million contract. They have payton to pay soon, Gordon to pay soon and Oladipo to pay soon. They can't pay everyone. The reason the Lakers would get Harris wouldnt be to make the Lakers a playoff team this year. It would be to have a solid player to add for the future. The Lakers are rebuilding as we all know. So even though the answer to your questions are "no" it doesn't make getting harris impossible or a bad idea. Unlikely? Yes. That being said, I think its more likely than Barnes.
Fantasy has nothing to do with Lakers. It was a joke. And yes he has lots of potential and a good offensive game. He's still tobias harris for crying out loud. He has upside sprinkled with some very good qualities. The minute I mentioned the guy most people went from, "never heard of him" to NO WAAAY we get him. Hes a young up and coming player on a team filled with young up and coming players who happens to have a signing bonus with Nike if he signs in LA. He also turned down an extension. Its really not that far fetched to think hes SOMEWHAT attainable.....Especially after the magic just signed Vucevic to $54million. Hes much more attainable than Barnes IMO.
The Magic have to pay Oladipo in 2017-2018 The Magic have to pay Gordon in 2018-2019 The Magic have to pay Payton in 2018-2019 Total salary in 2017-2018 - 46 million Total salary in 2018-2019 - 25 million They aren't going to be struggling to pay everyone, considering Oladipo hasn't shown he's worth max yet, Gordon and Payton are still unknowns and Harris isn't a max player either. The cap talk is irrelevant right now.
I disagree. I think cap talk is always relevant. Even 4 years out. Think about how long we talked about summer of 14 or how we are talking about summer of 16.
If we were able to get Harrison, we wouldn't worry about locking him up long term. He's a keeper for a championship team.
Tobias Harris would be nice as well... I don't think Barnes is too far out of the picture, especially seeing as we got Pau... They have their starting/closing lineup that doesn't include him, and he has been very mediocre for them this far. If we could give them some proven players, they might pull the trigger. Although, I don't know that we really have any players we want to give up that benefit anyone. Lin, Kobe, Young, and Randle are probably our untouchables. I wouldn't trade Davis either. Ellington, Henry, Johnson, Kelly, Hill? I'd probably give up any combination of those guys for Barnes + one of their backup bigs. The thing is, they're in win-now mode. Barnes doesn't look like he's contributing much, so why not give him up for Hill or something?
Harrison Barnes or Tobias Harris are obvious answers.. Corey Brewer would be nice too. If it doesn't end up being a trade & we just use it on a FA, can't think of a single player that would be more than a gamble on a minimum contract. Will Bynum is the best choice at PG I guess..
I mean, Corey Brewer's situation kinda fits the bill. We have a $4.8M Disabled Players Exception. Brewer's on his last year of his contract, at $4.75M, so that works. He's a defense minded, hustle SF with a constant motor. He's going to lose minutes to Wiggins anyways. Come here and he could possibly start when Swaggy comes back, and Wes goes back to the bench.
Lin, Price. I'm still really not convinced that Clarkson is a PG. -Lin has averaged 2350 minutes per season over the last two. He missed 11 games last year. There are normally about 4000 minutes availalbe per position per season. -Price has averaged about 500 per season over the last three. -We can increase Price's minutes, but how much? 1000 minutes? 1500 minutes? When a player goes down to injury, this puts different stresses on players. Look what happened last year. Everyone was hurting with use injuries - hamstrings, ankles, etc., that need to be shut down from game action in order to heal. That puts the stress on different players, players who aren't accustomed to that wear and tear. It seems to take a couple of years and heavy minutes to acclimate an NBA player to the 82 game season without wearing out and breaking down. And even then deep playoff runs, international play can contribute to overuse. If Lin gives us his usual, that will be about 75 games and 2300 or 2400 minutes. Price might give 1000, but that's an unusual amount of wear and tear for him, and we can expect that at some time he'll break down at that clip. We either turn to Clarkson for about 10 minutes per game for 82 games (but he's a rookie, and lots of rookies aren't ready for that kind of play) or bring in another PG and let Clarkson play SG, where it's a more natural fit for him (or let him play either based on matchups). I support bringing in another combo guard, wing, or PG, in that order, as I think our wing spot needs even more help.
Oh, I don't doubt Clarkson is a Shooting Guard, I've made that point multiple times, but he does have the ability. I did start to think that Lin/Price over the season may be a lot of minutes, another guard wouldn't hurt. But I don't think we need to use the DPE for that. I do like Ellington's shooting ability at SG right now behind Kobe, while Clarkson continues to develop and hone his skills. I think Clarkson is still a bit raw.
Oh I'm not saying it's impossible, I just don't see the way we get him is all. I happen to like Harris. I think he's got solid potential. But the Magic aren't just going to give him up for nothing. Their money situation won't get serious for another couple years and they aren't just going to let a talented young player go if they don't have to. Then the Lakers' side comes into play. 1. What do we give up to get him? and 2. Is he good enough to eat into our cap space for another, potentially bigger, piece? That's all I'm saying. I think Barnes is better than Harris so I wouldn't mind building around him if we had to. I'm not convinced Harris is one of those pieces though. I don't find either of those players likely to be acquired unless we gave up the Houston first and/or Randle and I don't want to do either of those things.
He's a 1 in the sense that Westbrook and Rose are a 1. He played PG in college, but he plays a SG style.
