scoobs07 wrote:Jammer wrote:I think Laker fans need to look at this from Utah's perspective GOING FORWARD (after the Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell trades where Utah took a lot of salary back but got a lot of draft picks).
Utah is at $144M in Team salary, which is $32 Million above minimum Team salary of $112M and $6M below the luxury tax line.
Utah will look to do trades where they take less salary in than they send out, to try to get closer to the minimum team salary of $112M now that Utah is in Tank mode.
The five players that Utah is dangling can all produce a return individually so to get a collection of them is going to cost, but only if Utah is sending out more salary than they are taking in.
Giving bubkus for a collection of them won't work since they all are individually worth at least a 2nd Round Pick (Gay), with the rest having significantly higher stand alone value.
Bojan Bogdanovic - Age 33 - ($19,550,000 expiring)
Mike Conley - Age 34 - ($22,680,000 signed thru 2024 with $14,320,000 guaranteed in 2024 (2024 salary is 24,360,000)
Jordan Clarkson - Age 30 - ($13,340,000 with $14,260,000 Player Option for 2024)
Malik Beasley - Age 25 - $15,558,035 with 2024 salary of $16,524,106 fully Unguaranteed, effectively a Team Option
Rudy Gay - Age 36 - $6,184,500 with $6,479,000 Player Option for 2024
So, if Westbrook ($47,063,078) is Utah's incoming, the outgoing combinations totaling more than Westbrook's salary that are still within the CBA's limits for the deal to work are:
Bogdanovic, Clarkson and Beasley = $48,153,535
Bogdanovic, Conley and Gay = $48,414,500
Bogdanovic, Clarkson, Beasley and Gay = $54,632,535 *** This and the 2 deals above will probably require 2 Unprotected 1rsts
Bogdanovic, Conley and Clarkson = $55,570,000 *** Might not have to include 2nd 1rst Round Pick, just a 1rst and 2 Seconds
Bogdanovic, Conley and Beasley = $57,788,035 *** Best Chance to Avoid having to include a 2nd 1rst Round Pick
A deal like Bogdanovic, Clarkson and Gay would be out of the question for Utah because at only $40M in outgoing salary it would put Utah $1M over the luxury tax line (adds $7 Million of direct salary plus you give up the payment non-tax paying teams receive at the end of the year, which is typically at least $4.5M per team - Utah ain't doing that under any circumstances since they are now in Tank Mode).
Bogdanovic, Beasley and Gay would also be unlikely as that would mean that Utah is adding $5.77M of salary and put their team salary at nearly $150M - I don't think that Utah would do that even if they were offered the 2027 and 2029 Picks without any Protections. Utah wants less salary, not more.
Westbrook/Nunn/2027 unprotected 1st/2024 2nd/2026 2nd for Conley/Bojan/Beasley. Saves Utah about 6 million.
I don't have a bias for either Utah or Lakers. Just was playing around trying to work out a trade that would work under the CBA and that is also fair to both teams.
But without Nunn I think that your proposal for 1 Unprotected 1rst and Two Seconds (plus Westbrook) for Bojan, Beasley and Conley is FAIR. Doable for Utah considering the money they save. When you add in taking on Nunn's $5.25 M salary for this year, I think it would drive Utah from possibly accepting Two seconds to wanting a second Unprotected 1rst (unless the Lakers included a check for Nunn's $5.25M salary as cash consideration). Just my reaction if I was the Utah owner. Not putting myself in Ainge's shoes because Ainge is a notoriously hard bargainer. But the owner might be more inclined to save $10.6M without Nunn and just take 1 Unprotected 1rst and Two seconds (or take Nunn if the Lakers included $5.25M in cash consideration to cover his salary). But Nunn's a good player, I can't see why the Lakers wouldn't want to keep him. However, if the Lakers instead opted for one of the combinations with less money saved by Utah (especially the near equal salary swaps despite a 3 for 1); then Utah will probably be pressing for Two Unprotected First Round Picks.
