Do you think Rob Pelinka even realized he needed to re-do the trade for extra cap? Or only after the internet did?

[levon]

You guys realize what happened right? On Twitter, LakerFilmRoom cited an article on 24/7 Sports breaking down how the Lakers can clear 32 million without waiting. Sedano on ESPN 710 LA read it, told Bobby Marks to read it on air. Bobby Marks went and read it, and then Woj comes out saying "sources" tell him and Bobby Marks this is what the Lakers are doing.

Meanwhile, fans construct some narrative of the Lakers' FO incompetence, Pelinka not discussing closing dates (absurd), etc. because they take Wojnarowski's word as gospel, neglecting the fact that he is neither a cap expert, nor do his opinions have any more predictive value than the next guy's.

We all got taken to town by these guys who don't bother to cross-reference their thinking. We take 50 reductionist, vague words and attribute it to the dozens of people actually involved in these transactions, making them seem stupid and unaware to fit the reporting, instead of the reporting actually serving facts.

[xdrta+]

Can please someone explain it to me as if I'm 5 years old, why our cap space changes in accordance with the date of the completion of Davis trade?

It's weird. It's not straight math. It's about sequence of events. As we sit here tonight between contracts, dead money, cap holds for #4 and Caruso and incomplete roster charges the Lakers have about 77 million on the books. Leaving 32 mil in space below the 109 mil cap. If they trade for Davis on the 6th, LA sends out 24.9. Salaries for Ball, Ingram and Hart = 17.9 mil and the 7 mil cap hold for 4 drops off. They bring back 29.9 mil between Davis' salary (27.1mil) and an additional 2.8 mil in incomplete roster charges. Thats a 5 million dollar swing that goes onto the books making it about 82. Now the cap space is down to 27. If AD doesn't wave his trade kicker his salary becomes 31 mil, the Lakers payroll goes to 86 and caps space down to 23. The Lakers would prefer to wake up on the morning of the 6th and spend that 32 million dollars and their room mid level exception. which would put them over the cap. Once over the cap, they can just trade for AD as long as the salaries match. By trading 24 mil worth of players they can take back 125% or about 32 million in salary. But to send out 24 mil they need to be able to include the salary of #4. His salary doesn't count until 6/30. In short, unbalanced trades count against your cap space, but if you spend all your cap space first, you can operate above the salary cap for trade purposes.

excellent post. Hope everyone who takes a read.

I think you mean 7/30, not 6/30. The draftee can sign a contract on 7/1 but can't be traded for 30 days.

[elBJ]

Lakers fans war on Woj is easily a Top 5 Most Cringy subplot of the past 10 offseasons.

War on Woj has nice ring to it.

Woj War I

[TheGOATWill]

It's weird. It's not straight math. It's about sequence of events. As we sit here tonight between contracts, dead money, cap holds for #4 and Caruso and incomplete roster charges the Lakers have about 77 million on the books. Leaving 32 mil in space below the 109 mil cap. If they trade for Davis on the 6th, LA sends out 24.9. Salaries for Ball, Ingram and Hart = 17.9 mil and the 7 mil cap hold for 4 drops off. They bring back 29.9 mil between Davis' salary (27.1mil) and an additional 2.8 mil in incomplete roster charges. Thats a 5 million dollar swing that goes onto the books making it about 82. Now the cap space is down to 27. If AD doesn't wave his trade kicker his salary becomes 31 mil, the Lakers payroll goes to 86 and caps space down to 23. The Lakers would prefer to wake up on the morning of the 6th and spend that 32 million dollars and their room mid level exception. which would put them over the cap. Once over the cap, they can just trade for AD as long as the salaries match. By trading 24 mil worth of players they can take back 125% or about 32 million in salary. But to send out 24 mil they need to be able to include the salary of #4. His salary doesn't count until 6/30. In short, unbalanced trades count against your cap space, but if you spend all your cap space first, you can operate above the salary cap for trade purposes.

excellent post. Hope everyone who takes a read.

I think you mean 7/30, not 6/30. The draftee can sign a contract on 7/1 but can't be traded for 30 days.

For reasons unknown I’ve confused June July and August my entire life. Rookie contracts are official for salary purposes July 30th.

[Don Ford]

Rob Pelinka is the dumbest GM in the NBA and it's not even close. First of all he traded away a potential all star in Brandon Ingram and a decent point guard in Lonzo Ball,5 1st round picks for a 1 year rental in Anthony Davis.Second of all he has no idea how the salary cap works. Third of all,he's pretending as if any team would take players like MO Wagner and those other scrubs that the Lakers are offering to clear cap space. Even the Kings front office back in the 2015/2016 season wasn't nearly as incompetent and as desperate as the LA Lakers front office is right now.

Congrats, nearly every point you tried to make is wrong.

1) It wasn't 5 1st round picks, it was three picks and a pick swap

2) So is Ingram a potential all-star or a role player?

I think Brandon Ingram will probably be role player at best.

3) AD has already said that the Lakers and the Knicks are the only teams he'll sign with long term if he's traded so this is clearly not a one year rental
4) Pelinka was a very successful agent for many years before becoming the Lakers GM. Thinking that he "has no idea how the salary cap work" is ridiculous

BTW, good call on the AD trade.

I have been hearing conversations far as the Lakers trading for Anthony Davis,even more so since last night.Lets be real here,the Lakers are not in the running for Anthony Davis or any other star player for that matter. First and foremost this team is dysfunctional, even more compared to the 2015/2016 Sacramento Kings,so that already rules them out far as any free agents are concerned.Second, the Lakers have no real trading packs that any team would want.Third,who truly wants to play for a trash team like the Lakers.I don't even see how even above role players would want to join the Lakers,let alone a star player. It seem the people who saying that Lakers have a chance of getting a star player, are probably Lakers fans or Lebron James fans.

[woosah]

This is all an elaborate plot to stick it to Lebron James by Griffin. He never got enough credit for the Cleveland stint and he will make sure he gets the last laugh. Griff has already set up the trade with such cloudiness that it may fall through. bwahahaha. Now the lakers will scrap and do what it takes to spend all the cap and just when they think it's done, Griff will ask for more. MOAR. He will ask for compensation from the third team to allow them into the trade. They will refuse and then the deal will die and he won't be blamed! bwahaha. Then they will come back and give up Kuzma or whatever the Pelz want to make sure the fans don't riot and Griff will be the hero of pellie land. Awlll the picks. Awlll the playerzzz. Tamper with that Bronzy!!

lol/green

[kobe808lak]

You guys realize what happened right? On Twitter, LakerFilmRoom cited an article on 24/7 Sports breaking down how the Lakers can clear 32 million without waiting. Sedano on ESPN 710 LA read it, told Bobby Marks to read it on air. Bobby Marks went and read it, and then Woj comes out saying "sources" tell him and Bobby Marks this is what the Lakers are doing.

Meanwhile, fans construct some narrative of the Lakers' FO incompetence, Pelinka not discussing closing dates (absurd), etc. because they take Wojnarowski's word as gospel, neglecting the fact that he is neither a cap expert, nor do his opinions have any more predictive value than the next guy's.

We all got taken to town by these guys who don't bother to cross-reference their thinking. We take 50 reductionist, vague words and attribute it to the dozens of people actually involved in these transactions, making them seem stupid and unaware to fit the reporting, instead of the reporting actually serving facts.

Lul Woj... that is hilarious.

[snaquille oatmeal]

I honestly have no idea what to believe when it comes to the Laker's front office. For all the insanity that currently exists in the Lakers organization the one thing that gave me some comfort was the the belief that Pelinka was a smart, knowledgeable, if not morally bankrupt, former agent who had intimate familiarity with the CBA and salary cap rules and restrictions. I thought that he may know next to nothing about evaluating talent and drafting players but at the very least he's aware about trade rules and salary cap. So I tend to think he must have known about the need to make additional trades to open up enough cap room for a third max player.

That said, I also tend to believe that we often fail to appreciate how incompetent people can be at their jobs. It's why I often dismiss most conspiracy theories because much of the reasoning behind seemingly inexplicable actions or events can be explained by sheer incompetence. I've worked enough places to know that some people are really just that bad at their jobs. There's often no grand master plan; it simply comes down to someone just royally screwed up and we're all overthinking it because our minds can't comprehend the utter stupidity of it all.

I'd like to believe this was some type of svengali strategy but I'm open to the possibility that it's simply Pelinka desperately trying to cover his gross incompetence.

my take is that once they agreed on the pieces the Lakers offered the picks conditions as a sweetener so they could have options to be able to get the 32 mil

[will]

Real talk, don't think Pelinkerrr could be that incompetent. Linda must have some cap specialists on their team to help them navigate around the cap stuff.

[karkinos]

No, the media is playing you for clicks by stating the obvious.

The fact that you actually think a professional team doesn't have a team of cap analysts that would tell him beforehand is more indicative of falling for media clicks.

given how unprofessional these two sides have been during the season, why would we expect them to be any better?

[infinite11285]

Lakers fans war on Woj is easily a Top 5 Most Cringy subplot of the past 10 offseasons.

OP is a Raps fan. I’m cool with Woj. Why would LAL fans hate him? He’s just a guy delivering the news.

Woj hates LeBron because he has no access to his inner/external circles as a source for breaking news, and has a history of being particularly nasty towards athletes that bar him. In such cases, Woj abuses his media influence to control the narrative around said players. Given that, Woj will do his best to make sure LeBron's tenure is viewed poorly by the sports public.

[phraoh]

What I do know is this...Griffin is 10 times smarter than the Lakers front office. Griffin will do the deal on his timeline that is best for the Pelicans, not what is best for the Lakers. If Lakers want or need to move it back, it will cost them Kuzma or additional assets from a 3rd team. Book it. I think trade will just go through as is on the 6th...Lakers will try to shed the 3 players by then, and probably will be able to by trading 2nd rounders. So, Lakers will be left with 3 players (they will sign a 3rd "star") and no draft picks and no depth except 12 minimum wage guys. Should be an interesting summer with REAL GM posters blasting the Lakers and Laker fans pointing to how great their big 3 will be.

[Pointgod]

What most fans either purposely don’t understand or acknowledge is that a trade agreement is simply just a broad agreement on the trade, nothing is final and we’ve seen trades change from inception to final agreement or completely fail all the time. So you can’t definitively say there was an agreement on the 6th, it’s something that could have been discussed and should have been discussed. If Pelinka wanted to secure something, then he should have made explicit in the agreement that the number 4 pick’s salary is part of the the outgoing salary for the Davis trade. That way there’s no doubt about the date. If it was truly just an oversight the the agreed upon final date was the 6th then he should be fired. There’s no excuse for that.

[Clyde Frazier]

It will go down as one of life's biggest mysteries.

[Lawyershawn]

NBA teams have cap experts on staff.

Even if such a mistake were made, it likely would not be Pelinkas to make. Or rather, several people made the mistake.

[homecourtloss]

Do people think Pelinka works alone in a cubicle somewhere, typing away on a 6 year old computer with dirtied Cheetos remnants on his hands?

[Heej]

Lol people really like to believe whatever narrative is shoveled down their throats by the internet. There's so many moving parts to this whole deal I'm really amazed that people think Pelinka just outright fumbled the bag like this lol. Kinda wanna see the Lakers get a free agent more for the internet outrage than LBJs championship chances. Miami and Golden State gave everyone a few years of distraction from the League's real supervillain. When the Lakers win again it's gonna be baaaad lol

[The Laker Kid]

Pelinka was Kobe Fn' Bryant's agent for crying out loud. He's not dumb. Professional teams have multi-million dollar proprietary software made specifically for this task, in addition to their accounting and payroll tasks. People here probably think Pelinka comes to the office, asks for TPS reports, dabbles with player salary in Excel, plays with his red stapler, then clocks out. That's probably what Magic did though.

[NPZ]

Pelinka was Kobe Fn' Bryant's agent for crying out loud. He's not dumb. Professional teams have multi-million dollar proprietary software made specifically for this task, in addition to their accounting and payroll tasks. People here probably think Pelinka comes to the office, asks for TPS reports, dabbles with player salary in Excel, plays with his red stapler, then clocks out. That's probably what Magic did though.

Sources say other FO staff would take Pelinka's red stapler a la Office Space. He'd go around asking people if they've seen it.

[GordanFreeman]

I feel dirty for saying this but if the Raps don't repeat next year, I wouldn't mind the Lakers winning the title.