Unrestricted FAs this year

[dockingsched]

A significant question should be:

Who can the Lakers get for the minimum. They're in range of avoiding the luxury tax for the first time since they acquired Gasol. You may see the Lakers start to turn their dollars towards the draft and minimum free agents.

I expect Rashard Lewis to definitely be a Laker.

i don't think its realistic. they'd have to amnesty MWP, not re-sign sessions or hill, and fill out their roster with minimum salary players. even then i don't think they avoid the lux tax. in the other thread i saw u said blake amnesty, but that doesn't get u under the lux tax even before adding on the minimum salaries to get to the 12 players needed.

2012/2013 is the last yr of the 1 for 1 lux tax, so i think the lakers don't get under it til 2013/2014, when the incremental tax hike kicks in. 2013/1014 yr will also be key to avoid the repeater tax. if they don't avoid it that season, they'll be almost guaranteed to pay it the following yr when it kicks in.

so to me all signs point to the lakers doing everything possible to get under the lux tax in 2013/2014, not this upcoming yr. for this reason the lakers HAVE to move gasol for salary relief soon.

[Jajwanda]

If you do that then you can more or less play around with ideas like getting Sessions(4m), S and Ts for Beasley(4m), adding a SG/SF for the MLE(3m) and then trying to add a defensive specialist at PG like a Tu Holloway. You would be sitting right around the same financial territory as a year ago (say 85-86). You could potentially flush Pau in the off-season then. They've mentioned Sessions leaving opens up a certain amount of cash to move in this or that direction. That tells you their budget more or less for the upcoming year is right around this territory.

[tugs]

per wiretap:

I liked Clipperland. I liked the movement," Billups said. "I thought before I got hurt we really had fun and were playing great. I liked it a lot, but of course I would be crazy not to entertain any other offers that I might have. That's the fun of being a free agent.

any potential there or is the health status of Billups as clear as a murky swamp?