If Los Angeles does what it likely should wipes the books of three players, none of Harrison, Bamba, Beasley are that impactful or in the rotation (team options) then the team will have $40.08 million in projected cap space and $68.08 million in projected luxury tax space.
Without doing that, the Lakers would have far less, just $10.84 million in projected cap space and $38.84.
So Lakers will likely do that and try to sign some combination of:
REEVES (likely 12 to 20)
RUI (likely 12 to 20)
CP3 (long term security back loaded, wants max total guaranteed money before retirement and to win 1st championship)
GREEN (long term security back loaded, wants 27.5 this year + additional years)
HOWARD (min or slightly more + defensive opportunity to stop the new generation of bigs)
The Lakers can use different strategies to get to the same total contract amount and balancing the luxury tax by for example having their deals spike up at the end of their contracts after the new higher salary cap takes place next summer. This is the final year of these salary cap rules. The new deal with have streaming by either Disney (HULU, ABC, ESPN), Amazon+ (like Thursday night football) or Netflix entering live sports likely resulting in at least a 25% increase to the salary cap. Likely to be smoothed into this time to prevent a MVP from joining a record breaking winning championship team. Thus the new salary cap increased amount should be utilized by win now teams with prime and older players. For example the Nuggets should keep all role players because even if they pay a little tax this year, the next 4 years would not have tax and they can maximize their potential dynasty window (can Jokic do what Duncan never did and actually defend the title)
I hope the Lakers don’t get Draymond even though the Lakers need a big defender. Because I just don’t like dirty players. And he is perhaps the dirtiest.
Let’s keep Reeves, Rui + Davis, LeBron, Vando core + try to get CP3, a defensive big and get Howard back to have an extra big body that has successfully slowed down and helped us beat the Joker. The West has bigs now with Joker, Davis, KAT+Gobert, VicW. The West is again similar to the bigs of the past Duncan, Garnett, Gasols and to win a team likely needs to win big in 2024 and likely 2025 as well.