If Dallas stays at 3 and loses out on Ayton, Bagley....they tie up their cap on Capela or Gordon and Houston and the Magic match...then offer: Deng, Zu, Cavs 1st round pick, Denver 2nd round pick, S&T KCP (3 years 33M) to Miami Hassan to Dallas Matthews to OKC PG to LA Miami is over the cap which is why the S&T for KCP helps. Philly exposed Miami on the wing in the 1st round and with a defensive coach like Spoels, I'm sure they like KCP in this deal especially with Ellington being a free agent. Plus they do not have a 1st or 2nd round pick this year. Hassan clearly wants out, so start grooming another stiff in Zu and possibly dude will have more chemistry with Dragic. Riles has gone down the Deng path before to "replace" Bron in 2014, so maybe Deng can turn it around in the familiar confines of South Beach. Cuban struck out on Howard and DJ and Noel...trying to replace Tyson Chandler after their title run. Cuban has been trying to right that ship for a minute. If they strike out in the draft and free agency, then Hassan is a good contingency for them and lets face it...just giving up an expiring Matthews for him is worth the risk. With Melo definitely opting in, cap relief for OKC can't happen till 2019. Bring in a 3D player like Matthews on an expiring deal to replace PG (who's out anyways) and try to contend with Melo still on the roster. Matthews and Melo come off in 2019 and you can go FA shopping again. PG to LA....bout damn time! And with the S&T of KCP and depending on the order in how we use our cap, we can create a TPE to use later.
Does that leave us with a larger single cap spot and more money to work with in any way? Other than throwing more money at LBJ? Or for 2019? I liked your hope and my hope with the precedents set with super teams already (LBJ [twice], Bosh, Wade, Durant) of top guys LBJ and PG (if both come) taking a little less to retain Randle and a better all around roster.
KCP is a Georgian, so being in Florida isn't too far off from being home. There is no way at all that KCP gets 18M again in this market. Getting north of 10M would be an achievement imho and Rich Paul will do everything to keep KCP happy as well as Bron. So we would need Rich and KCP to sign off on it, but there are worse places to go to than South Beach haha. Miami is capped out, so they can't just outright sign KCP and they are right at the luxury tax threshold so they can only offer KCP or any free agent the tax-payers MLE of 5.4M. KCP at 10M per is above market value (LouWill went for 8M), plus 12.5M Jules cap hold, plus roughly 40 in team salary (including Deng) = about 63M KCP + Deng (29M) out for PG (20.7M) in = 55M in team salary (ie 46M in cap space) So in trading for PG, we gain his bird rights and immediately can offer him a lucrative extension. We have Jule's cap hold on the books and can match any offer sheet and we have roughly 45M in cap space. If Bron gets his max, we still have about 10M in cap space left and not to mention a 8M TPE depending in the chronological order of using available cap and trading for it. We'll also have the 4.8M room exception.
Wes Matthews opting in isn't because of a cold FA market. His option is for 18.6M and even if the market was flush with cash, he wouldn't get remotely close to that given he will be 32 by the start of next season and coming off a mediocre season where he missed 19 games. It's a common sense move on his part. Dirk won't opt out. The Mavs aren't keeping Noel, let's be real about that one. The rest are insignificant enough where the team could just renounce their rights on them if they needed the cap space. They are not going to lose nearly 10M in cap space to maintain the rights to Doug McDermott for example. Only Ferrell was a real factor for them all season and his roster hold is just 2.92M. If you add up the contracts of Barnes, Wes, Powell, Dirk, Barea, DSJ, Finney-Smith, Kleber, a Top 3 pick, the roster hold for Yogi and two roster holds, that's about 78 to 79M. With the salary cap at 101M, they'd have the cap space to make a sizable offer to Randle. It's not the MAX but it's enough to make the offer I said above of 20M per year.
Well if Dallas went 21 mil and Randle decided he wanted to stay a Laker and be part of what he knows is coming here .... and took 18 mil I don't think the Lakers going forward are thinking they overpaid and will be looking henceforth to trade him. Not to mention if Randle kills it again this summer and takes another significant leap skills wise and even squeezing a little more improvement out of himself physically because he too got the message from Magic and Rob and wants to be great. An all star. 18 mil for a beastlier, more skilled Randle .... sign me up. I would LOVE to know what 2 players and sets of photographs they gave Julius. I'd love to know for all of them.
Eddie: And we'd reluctantly match it. If Jules wants to stay in LA, he remains patient while we figure out George/Bron with our cap space. Maybe Mintz allows that to happen since it would also benefit George. 15M for Jules makes everybody happy (Jules gets 3x what he made this year), George comes home, LaBron gets his superteam without losing any of the core... And obviously the Lakers are happy cause we're back in contention again. However if Jules goes and signs a max type deal straight away, then we'll have from July 1st to July 8th to match it and figure out a contigency. Jules/Mintz have to know that retaining Jules at an unfavorable price point means he's going to be immediately placed on the block. After all, he's an asset and now becomes our best trade chip to bring in a disgruntled star (on a star's salary) to pair with Bron & George. Everybody take less and let's round out a title contending roster. Or take the max and become trade fodder so that we can trade for a better rounded roster. It's up to Jules and his agent...But we're definitely matching anything to retain him as an asset and not letting him go for nothing.
All right.... once more. A beastlier and more skilled Randle next year is not an unfavorable salary at 18 mil. Around the league. You have to get serious about this take on Randle at some point. You're backsliding now..
It's a common sense move in this climate because of exactly what I said: it's a cold market for FAs. There's not much money and buyers aren't paying as much as they have the last two seasons. It's why Wes opted in. It's why Carmelo will opt in. It's why Lou Williams went for way less expected on his extension. Dirk, Matthews, Barnes, Powell, Barea, Smith Jr., Dorian Finney-Smith, and Collinsworth (all of their guaranteed/long-term deals) add up to 67.7 million. Add in a top draft pick 6-7 million and their 2nd rounder worth roughly .8 million, plus cap holds, puts them at about 76.8 million. That leaves them a max slot enough for Randle, but that's assuming they're just going to waive their rights to McDermott, Noel, Mejri, Ferrell, and Kleber which I don't think is a safe assumption at all. They may not pay 10 million for McDermott, but that's his cap hold unless they waive his rights completely. They might not want Noel for 8 million, but that's his cap hold unless they waive their rights to him completely. Are they going to give up all their depth players for Randle? I doubt it. I have very serious doubts anyone is really going to offer Julius Randle 20 million dollars. We as Laker fans have a rosy view of him, but what has he actually done to earn that contract? The days of overpaying for role players is gone and I'm not positive Julius has proven he is worth 20ish million. His worth is far more likely to be around the 15-18 range. That's a significant cap percentage for a player who has not proven to affect the win column regularly.
LT: Difference between 15 and 18 million is 3M aka playoff Rondo. Every million counts in rounding out a legit playoff contending roster. Seems to me that this team needed a backup point and heck even a starting point that would make Zo earn his starter minutes. I keep saying max cause his max is 25M, so obviously I'd take 18M over 25M... But dude hasn't done anything in his career to justify even 18M...Let alone in a projected frigid market. So I'll start at his QO and hope he starts looking favorably at 15M. If not, then the closer he gets to 20M, the closer he gets to disgruntled star salary (ie Kawhi) and for any fan that wants to see Jules remain a Laker, better hope his price point stays as far away as it can from disgruntled star salary.
Well we all hope we can sign him for less. But he's worth every penny of 18 mil and that is with him taking maybe 3 or 4 mil (?) less than say a max Dallas offer. He's taking his discount. Julius in 2nd year, Julius in 3rd year .... Julius just this coming year improved over the beast he was regularly, not without faults, this year. The STUD played in all 82 games and bouncing people around in all those games.
It's a common sense move for Wes to opt in any climate is what I am saying. Again, we are talking about a soon to be 32 year old coming off a mediocre season where he missed 19 games to injury. Even if this was 2016 and teams were blindly throwing money around, he wouldn't opt out of 18.6M guaranteed. I think it's fair to say that they are going to renounce the rights to the likes of McDermott, Noel etc. if it means they have a shot to sign an impact player like Randle. It's one thing for the Lakers to tie up cap space to maintain the rights to Randle. It's another for the Mavs to tie up cap space to pointless players like McBuckets/Noel. The Mavs have been going hard at premiere free agents in recent summers and do what they need to in order to free up cap space, including renouncing their rights to numerous free agents on their team. In 2014 when they signed Parsons. In 2015 when they nearly signed DeAndre Jordan and instead signed Wes Matthews. In 2016 when they signed Barnes. This team has shown no desire whatsoever to hold on to the rights for "depth" at the expense of cap space and generally renounces numerous free agents heading into the FA period. My opinion that Randle can be offered 20M per year has really nothing to do with a rosy view of him - frankly I've actually been okay with the idea of letting him go and committing to Kuzma at starting PF - and free agency has proven countless times that you don't need to be "worth it" to garner a large contract. Just look at Otto Porter Jr. last year. It's simply my belief that all it takes is one team to be tantalized by Randle's youth, his production (esp. 2nd half) and his talent. Combine that with his restricted free agency and needing to make an offer the Lakers won't want to match and it just leads to him being overpaid. All it takes is one team and the most logical team to do just that is Dallas. If he ends up in the 15M to 18M range, great. Not saying it won't happen. I just think there is a very real possibility he gets a 20M type offer from a desperate team who has a rosy view of him.
We'll see in a couple months, but I'd be shocked if he ended up with that sort of offer. I don't think it happens. And I don't agree that Matthews wouldn't have opted out any summer. He's looking at 18 million guaranteed, sure, but in the last two off-seasons when money was free he'd have probably earned more than that with a second contract. If he opts out in the summer of '17, he gets probably 3/30 million at least even in his condition with maybe the last year non-guaranteed, but still more guaranteed money overall. This summer? He has no chance at a contract worth 20 million dollars even over 3 years so opting in is the only move that makes any sense for him. People like Noel and Pope who declined to take massive 70 million dollar offers are going to have "lost" a good 50 million dollars or so. Whatever agents thought this money was going to spend the same way forever weren't thinking far enough ahead.
i think teams looking at RFAs will have capela and aaron gordon higher on their lists, and that could dampen the market a bit for randle. i could see chicago offering him some cash, though. what's their space look like? atl would probably like him, too.
Have not kept up with this thread at all, but am going to say the Lakers could be hamstrung here. If Randle signs an offer sheet from Dallas on July 1, I believe the Lakers will only have 3 days to respond yea or nay. Or do an S&T around him. So if Lakers haven't signed anyone yet and they're counting on signing Randle as the last thing they do, they could be stuck having to make the decision before they want to. TL;DR: Lakers FO should have their ducks lined up before Randle signs anything. Then the FO can decide. Try to talk Randle into waiting, but it may not work for Randle to wait if he sees the money drying up out there. Dallas will likely offer close to max if not max, they wanna make it painful for the Lakers to keep him if they don't get him.
Initially I just commented when someone said they'd be surprised if Randle got anything above $15-$16 million. I kind of just went on a tangent throwing around that 20M number for Dallas. Really my opinion is more so I think Randle will get more than 16M per (likely 18M per year) with a chance he gets 20M per year. Agreed, we'll see in a couple months. Agree to disagree until then.
I don't see why Randle wouldn't accommodate the Lakers by holding off a few days. If Cuban really wants him he'll wait. I still think the far more exciting team for him to spend the next 4 years on is going to be the Lakers and he likes it here and his teammates and his coach and will be willing hopefully to take then 3 or 4 less down to 18 or 17. Which is a considerable hit over 4 years what he's giving up. He likes our style of what they allow him to do and have him do. Dallas has a lot of unseemly stuff in their FO in the recent past as well and maybe his wife's not fond of what she's read and who Cuban is to have let it go on. Who knows. Julius and the Lakers I think will work hard to find something where both sides are happy.
Capela, as a defensive minded Center, is a very different player from Randle so I don't think their markets will cross. Gordon, yes. Likewise for Jabari Parker. Along with Randle we're talking about three offensively solid young PFs. I don't know that Randle will be lower on the list though because teams might perceive him to be (A) The best of the bunch (B) The most likely to be pulled away from their team with a strong offer sheet because of the Lakers' pursuit of MAX free agents with their cap space. The Magic can ill-afford to just let Gordon walk away. The Bucks could probably let Jabari go if it gets expensive but that just goes back to point A as he isn't better than Randle at this stage.
I don't think $15 million gets it done after $12 million was on the table to start the year where Randle & Aaron were willing to take that. Randle than goes out and has the best season of his career and doing everything Luke and the FO asked him to do.
Exactly! They were willing to take 12M at the beginning of the year. A 3M bump in pay is what some other players in the league make for the entire year. He put up numbers, but didn't move the needle. AD makes Jules's max, puts up arcade numbers and moves the needle. Jules ain't in that tier. He's not that type of souperstar yet. 15M should be his ceiling for what he's done to date....now incorporate the anticipated frigid market this summer along will all the frontline players that will be available this summer....let the market dictate his number, but I ain't eager to just throw him that type of money. You obviously keep him, but lets be smart about it.
