If james does not opt in for next season and take his 51.5 million salary, where does that leave the Lakers payroll and cap, and how much of that would-be salary will be available for use to sign other players? I know there's speculation about LeBron taking less if the Lakers were to sign Bronny (if and when he leaves USC), but I am interested in knowing where we stand cap-wise if LeBron opts out altogether.
I don’t know the actual math, but my impression has been that we still wouldn’t really have enough cap space to do anything significant. And so it seems like Lebron opting out in free agency and walking for nothing would be devastating for us. We better hope to retain him, or work out a trade. But if I’m mistaken about the math and we could feasibly just let him walk and have enough cap room to reset, I’d love to hear that
if he opts out completely and walks away? I know a guy who may throw a big party I wish him well, and hope he leaves with (2) chips vs (1) see chart below: we'd be at about 127 million if that was the only change. Here is the cap info I found: https://www.spotrac.com/nba/cap/2024 Cap Maximum: $141,000,000 Luxury Tax Threshold: $171,315,000 Teams that are under the cap will have their cap holds applied to their overall cap while teams that are over the cap will not have their cap holds applied but must use any exceptions they possess. If a team uses their Bi-Annual, Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level, or Sign-and-Trade they will be considered to be hard-capped and must keept below the Luxury Tax Apron ($178,655,000). Looks like we'd have 13 million to use approximately, but no exceptions. I would think we'd be better off assisting with a sign and trade or something else.
what makes me happy about seeing that salary chart is that after Lebron, our only (2) 30 year olds are Davis and Dinwiddie. Rob has done a solid job of extending our competitive window into the future even if Lebron walked.
look at this list before you think about getting cap space this summer. the only real threat is philly, i guess, who has more than enough space to pay lebron. but they'd still have to fill out the rest of the roster AND pay maxey the max. i don't see it, but yeah, it wouldn't be great for us, as we'd be replacing lebron with an mle-level player. our ceiling would probably be about right where we are right now. we'd have a bad year next year, when we probably owe our pick to NO. this might move us to trade AD (for a lot), bottom out for a year or two, and have clean books and picks for when luka becomes available. iow, i think lebron leaving would just move the longer-term plan up a year, and we'd end up giving NO a higher pick than anticipated.
We have to have a "concern" watch to a certain member who claims that he is his favorite player? Not surprised if James pulls this. Don't care either. No statue or retirement of his jersey IMO as a Laker. Thanks to him for everything though if he goes. I'd like Anthony Edwards as his replacement if that can be swung.
Short of Lebron leading us to two more titles, he does not deserve a statue, period. Look at the people who have statues. 3-5 rings each. Lebron leading us to one title and one other season of note (with everything else being mediocre) does not a statue make. I guess he can have a jersey in the rafters, but he is not a Laker legend.
I just don't see it happening. I believe that we will actually draft Bronny if possible and try to cash in on that storyline. It only makes sense to me. I can't see Lebron opting out to go elsewhere. His family are here and I think they are loving the life in LA. He's got a great bunch of players by his side on this team. We might have one more move up our sleeve to bolster the roster in the summer although, honestly I really like the team we have now and I like the idea of more continuity now rather than shipping out guys like Dlo and Rui who have been playing great. $51 million is a good incentive for Lebron to stay here as well! I think more likely is we move on from this coach this summer. Ham has severely underachieved in my estimation. And he lost the locker room in general with his awful rotations/illogical lineups. He wrecked the continuity that Rob and the FO were striving for with their signings over the summer (Rui, Dlo, Vando, Reaves) by yo-yoing those guys around to make time for one year guys in Prince and Cam.
