Rui Hachimura Discussion: Huge Buckets

Because that's how FA and cap space works.

Any team that wants to pay him over MLE needs to do it via cap space. There's only a few and most are tanking teams, those aren't probably using a chunk of it on Rui nor Rui would be interested. Likely only Clippers and Atlanta will be the competitive teams with cap space. Atlanta has cap space if they let Kuminga walk. I don't see them doing that to get Rui. That leaves the Clippers and they only have the cap space if John Collins walks, which is also a swap that they arguably are not interested in.

Then you have teams with the MLE and there's a bunch of them. And here I see a few of them interested in Rui. And that's where negotiation comes to. Does Rui want to move cities and get MLE money to go to Charlotte, Philly or Portland, not knowing if he will fit and it will work out or does he accept 2-3 million less to stay with us where he knows what to expect, keeps his life as is and is part of this new Luka-led building block?

There's this misconception that players get paid what they're worth but the way the CBA is built, especially for role players, it's really more to do on what money and exceptions are available and how the market shapes up rather than what they are actually worth


People also forget quickly. In our famous March run, Rui was a non-factor. He averaged 9pts, 2 rebs and 0.5 assists. He played the fewest minutes all year. Hell, between December and March he never averaged more than 10.5 pts. I mean any stat you choose is bad.

https://www.espn.com/nba/player/splits/_/id/4066648/rui-hachimura

He is definitely a playoff riser and has been insane this post season. And that's very valuable for sure and he deserves it. But he wasn't good all year and there's a strong indication that he may not find this type of production when playing along Luka, AR and Bron altogether as it never happened throughout the year.

 

Totally agree that the the amount of money that’s available in the offseason is going to dictate role players and needs to be considered in this new CBA. If you actually look into it, there aren't that many teams that are going to have the full MLE. From what I can see:

- Atlanta
- Charlotte
- Detroit (maybe not, they have to resign Duren, Tobias Harris & Kevin Huerter within 59m to have the MLE)
- Miami
- Portland
- Spurs (need to resign Barnes with bird rights to get the MLE, otherwise its room)
- Toronto
- Utah
- Washington

There are some others that could have it if they renounce their free agents, like Boston (Vucevic), Golden State (Porzingis), Houston (Eason), Clippers (Mathurin & John Collins), Philly (Grimes & Kelly Oubre) and Phoenix (Mark Williams, Goodwin and Gillespie).

I think one of those teams would give Rui the full MLE offer. So we probably have to be around there or slightly more to retain him. Players can also get offended by their current team when they feel they aren't appreciated and take a 1 year prove it elsewhere contract. I'd rather not lose the asset that Rui is, so I'd offer him a 4 year contract with a PO in year 4, starting between at 18. That's 4 years 80m.

 

Yeah we talked about this before, but why do we need to pay more than the MLE?
If we pay the same as MLE don't you think Rui chooses to stay vs any other team?

The only thing that can twist the negotiations is the role. He may get a promise of a starting role somewhere which we may not be able to do here, particularly if Bron stays. And I think any Luka/AR team that is a title favourite doesn't have Rui starting.
In that case we do need to pay him a bit more to convince him to stay as a bench player with a slight chance of getting a starting nod at some point but no promise

In value alone, I struggle to see Rui as a 20 million dollar player, to be honest. Maybe specifically in the playoffs he is because it suits so much and you might want to pay just for that, but I'm not entirely convinced

 

we kinda couldn't get rid of him trade the past couple years despite furious efforts, and he was a 4th percentile defender during the regular season.

 

IMHO, everyone not named Luka and Adou should be available in a trade, or Sign and Trade, if it’s going to improve the team and not just be a trade to make a trade.

 

Well in the playoffs against the best competition he has been a much better defender and also a 55% 3pt shooter and fantastic from the mid range.

We’ll see what Rui gets, personally I’d give him $18m per. Which is a slight raise on the MLE and gets him to 80m over 4.

 

With all the hoped for 3pt snipers we have been excited to bring in to play for the Lakers and still being excited knowing they weren’t perfect players …. only to see them flame out on the shooting end when it mattered most …. it’s hard to comprehend even considering letting Rui get away. Even with the scale balancing what he is decent at vs weaker at than what Laker Nation demands to truly be happy “other” than being the best in NBA history shooting from deep in the playoffs against top tier opponents.

 

look, i don't enjoy arguing this side given rui's like the only guy who showed up in the playoffs, but i can't just forget how very, very bad he was this season. he was heading for vet min, imo.

 

I think you have to keep guys who are playoff risers.
You re-sign him and if you need him to go out to improve your team later, then so be it.

 

Stop it, he was not heading for the vet min. He was heading for the TPMLE or Room. No one is passing on a 44% 3pt shooter that is 6’8 with athleticism and not a total sieve on defense. I mean DFS got the mle for last season.

I don’t think a few million more than MLE is an overpay. You can always flip him after as a salary slot if it doesn’t work.

 

Tpmle barely clears vet min for experienced players, tbh.

anyway, I just know if we re-up him at over mle, he’ll be in trade rumors wherein we’re attaching draft capital for lateral moves again, just like the past two years.

 

We can’t just have only players in the 10-15m price range either.

Are you personally saying we just let Rui walk?

 

i'm saying lots of options need to be on the table, and most under the cap options involve rui walking. i'm getting desperate for anyone to remember their thoughts from three weeks ago about basically all of our players. remember that those are based on larger sample sizes and less influenced by current emotions. all of a sudden, reaves is expendable and rui's exit is a non-starter. this is wild, imo.

as for the 10-15 per, that's kind of my point. if rui has to go so that we can get a player worth 30 million, then he has to go. and no, he can't and shouldn't be that 30m player, lol.

 

I jsut don’t want to be letting assets expire. That’s a terrible outcome. Rui will sign with the Spurs for the MLE and shoot 50% from 3 against us and everyone will be crying like they have been about Caruso for half a decade.

 

it's possible. but harrison barnes already did that to us. whoever SA signs is going to get wide open three point looks all day and probably hit a bunch going forward. and it's not like caruso because caruso wasn't a choice that had to be made. nor did anyone see any potential that caruso at sub-mle would ever be anything but an asset.

we already know FOR A FACT that rui at over mle is a non-asset, trade-wise. we know this because we have had him on that contract and tried to trade him. if rui shows up next year as the same guy he was last year, but on a 4 year/80 million dollar contract, i imagine some folks will change their tune quite quickly.

as pika pointed out somewhere, rui has been kind of an afterthought during some of our better stretches the past couple years, and he's really shined while we've been getting pasted in the playoffs. i'm not sure if i love all that.

anyway, i actually agree that if we're operating over the cap, you might as well sign him to a slightly over the mle contract, but i'm just nowhere near as impacted by the playoff performance as most others seem to be. it's really the same/opposite conversation we're having about reaves. i like more data. and the larger amount of data point to rui being overvalued right now and reaves being undervalued.

 

I also feel like I'm taking crazy pills here, people now want to pay Rui even more than what he made on his last contract with us? Like Abeer is saying, we already did this with him. He shot the cover off the ball in the 2023 playoffs so we re-signed him to an ascending deal starting at $15 million. And in the three years since he's been...okay? There was the weird Ham lineups year in 2024 where he was pretty up and down, then last year he regressed defensively and really didn't do anything notable on both the pre-Luka version and post-Luka version of the team. We spent all of last offseason arguing whether he or Smart should start and the answer to that question ended up being Smart, resoundingly.

Rui and Kennard are really good shooters who don't shoot that much and are neutral to negative defensive players (Kennard being worse on that end). We need someone who can actually close games next to Luka/LeBron/Austin and we have plenty of evidence at this point that Rui is not that guy. It would be great if we could have him as like the 7th/8th guy, but if you need to let him walk for nothing in order to bring in a legit 5th guy you absolutely have to do that.

 

He is valuable and he just happens to be a FA in a s***ty year for him.

You have Grant making $34m next year, Herro $33m, Hunter $24.9, Kuz $20.4, Kuminga $24.3, Monk $20.1, P Will $18m, Huerter $17.9, Klay $17.4, Struss $16.6, Robinson $15.9, Bogdanovic $16m

Some of those are bad contracts, some were handed out before teams realized what this CBA meant, and some are in his wheel house for price comps.

He has been elite at shooting the ball. This post season, his volume has been up a little. He's trying on defense, he's boxing out really well, rebounding is still not his thing. I do feel like the mental mistakes have been fewer, JJ and Bron haven't had to yell at him as much.

In a regular year, he might deserve a slight pay bump. Maybe up it to $20m flat. But that's not where the market is. He's a non tax MLE player heading into this market. Maybe we keep his money the same to not offend him/ do right by him and milk the off the court value he brings. But If we do that, that's an overpay in this summer's market.

There's value he does bring. Assuming he and Bron are both back, he's a good fill in starter for those 20-25 games that Bron will miss. Rui should be the 7th man with Marcus as the 6th and a new 2 way wing starting over both of them.

If we can figure out the roster needs, Smart's salary and Bron's salary and there's still enough to give him the same salary or up it to $20m... GREAT. Do it. But paying him that cannot be a priority and the purse strings are going to get tight, fast. I have bringing him back more important than Luke but much lower than the 4 issues above him (new wing(s), Bron, Smart and something to be done at C)

 

if we bring smart, lebron, and rui all back at the numbers people are suggesting, our only route to improvement is someone taking our junk and firsts in trade. which is exactly the strategy that has failed three times.