I've been thinking about this a lot the past several days and have been looking more closely into this year's projected Mid-to-Late First Round players- and I think there's a potential path here for the Lakers to get creative and be a bit aggressive in the draft this year. As previously discussed, there's several potential Centers in that range who could be smart pickups for the Lakers to pursue, most notably Motiejus Krivas and Aday Mara IMO. And while Krivas is very clearly the more immediately "NBA ready" player of the two, I do think Mara could still be a good get for the Lakers long term and would work fine if we do "Center by Committee" for the first couple of seasons. More importantly though is the three-headed dragon of a frontcourt that Mara is a part of at Michigan this year, alongside combo forward Yaxel Lendeborg and forward-center Morez Johnson Jr. I think there's a way for the Lakers to at least get one more First for this year's draft class on Draft Night, maybe two if we're really lucky, and walk out of the First Round Draft Night with one of either Krivas or Mara and either Yaxel or Morez, as the Lakers' long term starting frontcourt to pair up alongside Luka and Austin. Notably if the Lakers were able to draft Krivas and Morez, that duo would be monstrous. Reminiscent a bit IMO of playing AD at the 4 and Dwight+McGee at the 5 during the Bubble Ring run in 2020. Essentially, what we could do on Draft Night is agree to a trade with Denver to take on Cam Johnson's contract into our cap space to enable them to resign Peyton Watson unperturbed, in exchange for their '26 First pick. That way, we'd be able to draft two potential longterm frontcourt pieces, have Cam as a bench piece and still have plenty of cap space left over to go do a S&T with Houston for Tari Eason after the fact.
Veesaar is a big that does basketball things on the court.Not just a specialist.His all around game is intriguing but does need to get stronger
i think denver can trade johnson into space for nothing, maybe even get an asset or two back, tbh. i'm trying to think of a time that a good player got traded in a salary dump AND the team gave a sweetener. even bad players on worse deals than johnson get dumped with seconds (not a first) attached right now. now, i could see situations where okc or denver gives us a first now for one of ours later during a salary absorption trade. but i'm not sure if it's worth it.
Denver's Michael Porter Jr. trade for Cam Johnson just last year. Also IDK that Cam Johnson's value is going to be particularly high this summer, considering the down year he's been having in Denver. That said, I've since pivoted towards the idea of trading our 2031 First and several of our Pick Swaps to OKC in exchange for absorbing Lu Dort in our cap space and getting their 15th pick in the First Round this year.
Maybe, but I could also see Presti being savvy in wanting to secure a rather valuable First from a rival team in OKC's conference that'd potentially be right around the end of Luka's prime.
1. mpj was a bad contract, but only 12 million of his 26-27 salary is guaranteed had his back gone out again. 2. they also got back cam johnson, probably the better player of the two on a better contract so, i don't view mpj as a pure salary dump. who's our cam johnson going back to denver or okc? this is true. he also didn't have a strong year the year before in bkn, which i was willing to write off cuz bkn, but two years in a row of meh is an issue. i still don't think he meets the kind of albatross qualifications required to attach a first to move somebody. i hope you're right, though--if that's true, even if we completely strike out in FA, there should be some assets to be gained via eating salary. lol, i think that's going too far. minny got the #8 overall pick for trading two future firsts a couple years back, and phx got three (likely lower, but still) firsts for their 2031 pick.
