So... Draft Prospects?

Slightly off-topic but dig this:

Our team next season consists of the following: Lou Williams, Nick Young, D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, Brandon Bass, Larry Nance Jr., and Anthony Brown. Those 7 players total only 26,126,154.

If we waive our Bird Rights to Kobe, Hibbert, Sacre, and Huertas while keeping the rights to Tarik and Jordan that drives our number to 28,487,016.

For nine players that leaves I believe 4 minimum cap holds. The minimum will likely increase from this season's 525,093 so let's call it 550,000 shall we? That means going into FA we'll have only 30,687,016 on our books.

With the expected cap being roughly 90 million dollars that leaves us with 59,312,984 to spend.

As a reference point here's the max contracts we can hand out:
>6 years in the league starts at: 22.5
6-9 years in the league starts at: 27
10+ years in the league starts at: 31.5

We could add Durant and still have 32,862,984 to spend on LeBron James, Al Horford, Hassan Whiteside, Mike Conley, DeMar Derozan, Chandler Parsons, Al Jefferson, Joakim Noah, Rajon Rondo, Roy Hibbert, Timofey Mozgov, Pau Gasol, Nicolas Batum, Luol Deng, Evan Turner, Jeff Green, Joe Johnson, Ryan Anderson, David Lee, Eric Gordon, Gerald Henderson...

That's not even mentioning guys who are Restricted Free Agents like Andre Drummond, Harrison Barnes, and Bradley Beal. We could easily give one of these three a max offer while STILL wining and dining a max free agent elsewhere. We won't be hung up like we've been in the past.

Now if we somehow get the Top 3 pick, @Doc Brown 's desire to trade it makes way more sense. Two max free agents is worth more than the #1 pick in almost every case. I'd rather have Durant/Whiteside or Batum/Horford/+ or Whiteside/Derozan/+ than have Ben Simmons/Derozan/+.

Either way, the outlook is great going forward guys. THIS is why everyone is convinced the Lakers will turn around their season. We have so much money to spend to go along with already blossoming talent that our return is inevitable. We've had such a hard time the last few years that it's easy to dismiss us as a FA destination while we stink, but I bet Durant would HAVE to take a second look if we have a shot at adding ANOTHER max talent next to him before he even inks his deal.

 

You know what man? No let's not. This season is a quarter of the way in and it's already over. That's three seasons in a row where we have to live that way. It's not easy to always find silver linings and look at things from a positive perspective when things aren't going well. I'm going to remain optimistic and every point I made in that post stands. I'm not saying we WILL get any of those players. I'm saying we CAN.

Probably, but did you read my post or did you just assume I said something about getting Durant and LeBron? I said we have the cash to make moves like that. I didn't see we were going to or that it was a given we'd get two awesome FAs. For weeks now I've been saying let's overpay for mediocre talent just so that we can have some talent. Did you just assume I was being overzealous? My point is that there IS an argument for coming here since we can bring two guys in instead of just one. Remember when Miami had cap space? Yeah things happened nicely for them. It's within the realm of possibility depending on how the Lakers play their cards this season. Slim chance they get two great FAs? Sure. But there's a 100% chance they spend their cash so you can bet your bottom dollar they're going to get SOMEBODY this summer. Destination team or not that cash is going to go somewhere. Now without Kobe there's going to be a huge vacuum to fill. You think being a star in LA doesn't appeal to anybody? That's unbelievably shortsighted.

You think Whiteside doesn't look at LA with a different eye if we grab another stud FA? You think Durant doesn't look at LA differently with Whiteside there along with three young studs? He'd be an idiot not to consider it even if he ultimately chose to go elsewhere. We're going to be in a position to make a splash like we haven't in recent years even with an open max slot.

No I'm not. Does anyone else have that kind of cash? Is there anyone else that'll have nearly that kind of freedom?
You know who else has as much cash as the Lakers next season: nobody.
You know who else can add two max contracts? The Sixers. Gee what a competition that is.
You know who else can add a max contract and have space left over? The Hornets, Grizzlies, and Blazers can each add a role player after a max contract.
You know who else can add a max contract? The Wizards, the Bucks, the Hawks, the Pacers, and the Jazz. That's your biggest competition right there, but they aren't adding more than a max contract person.

Patient? That's what we've been doing for three years. How do you propose to preserve cap space this time? Kobe has been a cap space place holder for two years now. Hibbert is the cap space place holder this season. The year before that was Jordan Hill and Jeremy Lin. You want another place holder for this next summer? How long do you plan on the Lakers winning 20 games a year?

If we get the pick and keep it, fine. We'll STILL have more money than about anyone else except maybe the Sixers. That's besides the point. The real point is that our future is in the FA this summer not the off-chance we get the pick. Getting the pick gives us an opportunity to turn that pick into a more proven star to go along with the three kids we already need to develop. The very slim chance we keep the pick doesn't mean we HAVE to stay out of FA. In fact that would just reinforce that we should go even harder after FAs so that we can be competitive WHILE we get the kids up to speed.

All bets should be off regardless of what happens in the draft. What exactly do you expect to happen with nearly 60 million dollars available? What do you think is going to happen there? We're just not going to spend it? That's not how it works. We HAVE to spend the money this summer.

Also: Clarkson isn't a star, just a nice Monta Ellis type? Hm. Seems FAs would like to play with a young Monta Ellis. Seems like that'd be helpful to our cause instead of writing him off.

 

Yeah, we can't sit for another offseason, we must spend on players available. We'll have a ton of money and a roster to fill, and a pitch to guys that LA can now be their franchise with Kobe retired. I don't see that appealing to guys that need to win now like Durant, but I have to believe it will finally appeal to plenty of others. We can't go full-76ers and sign garbage players and keep tanking for picks. You never go full 76ers, you may never come back.

 

Again: I'm NOT saying we're going to attract a Top tier FA this summer RIGHT NOW.

I'm saying we WILL sign FAs this summer. We HAVE to because there is no other choice. Top tier or not, we're signing FAs this summer. We will never have another opportunity like this summer to sign FAs. Whether or not we sign Durant, we're signing SOMEBODY and given our available cash we're going to sign someone ELSE as well.

 

I think it's incredibly unlikely we find 60 million dollars in expiring contracts. I could see us eating maybe one contract, but even a max contract is about 20 million dollars. Are we finding three such guys?

I could see us eating some contracts, but we will absolutely be signing somebody this summer. They might not be a Top tier FA but we'll overspend for somebody if we have to.

 

I'm thinking we get no one big again. I agree with fabfour and abeer, no one will want to sign with us unless Russell AND Randle show significant improvement. Everyone who is a gamechanger who might consider us is restricted like Drummond, Barnes, etc.

I think we are looking at Batum on a max deal, maybe Noah as a stop gap at center. We finish slightly better next season and maybe push for that 8 seed.

 

We did that with Lou Williams. He was the "best bench player" last season. He just sucks for us because he has no one around him to give him the space he had last year.

 

I don't know that a top of the top free agent wants to come here, no, but again I think you guys are overlooking the factor of Kobe being gone. The spot of the franchise player for the Lakers being open for the first time in 20 years (it was either Shaq or Kobe since '96) I still think is a big deal. The pitch to free agents won't have to be "you can play next to Kobe", with guys having to worry about about playing next to what we are seeing right now, or "come to LA and it will be your team after Kobe retires" like it's been for a few years now. The pitch will be come to LA and you will be the franchise player for the LA Lakers. That might not mean what it once did, but it has to still mean something for someone out there.

 

I just don't agree.

Hibbert is at most 20 million, Bass is under contract for 3 and Lou for 7 million already. So you expect the Lakers to sign two frontloaded 20 million dollar deals? It won't happen.

I imagine they'll overspend for a guy like Batum way before they start filling holes waiting for cap space. Last summer they showed that they learned from it already by going with Lou. They won't be recycling their money this summer, they'll be overpaying for talent like throwing a max deal at Barnes or Batum or something like that and then spending the rest of the money filling out with either another max contract (which suddenly makes more sense because we already have a max player signed) or a couple of great value pieces.

I find it incredibly unlikely that we built everything for this summer just to keep waiting. I find it far more likely that we overpay for 2nd Tier players than continuing the cap space charade.

 

Yeah this is one of the points I was trying to make too.

That scenario where we're waiting on so-and-so while so-and-so is hanging out waiting for us to make a move? That won't happen this summer. We have enough room where we can just get whoever we want WHILE STILL wining and dining another guy.