The team has held off on signing Tarik Black, Marcelo Huertas and second-overall pick Brandon Ingram, keeping an eye on what could be $13.6 million in cap room (assuming the team also waives and stretched Nick Young).
The Lakers do have an unnamed trade target in mind, but are also preserving space for another opportunistic Calderon-like deal.
Other than speculating about who they might be targeting, I really like reading some more details about how the lakers are using their cap space in creative ways. Earlier, details came out about the Deng, Mozgov, and Clarkson's deals and it was revealed that all 3 contracts take a dip in 2017-2018, which creates an additional 2.5ish mil in cap space (players make it back up on the 4th yr).
Now, its being reported that the lakers are holding off on signing Ingram, Black, and Huertas in order to maximize their current cap.
For Ingram, his current cap hold is $ 4,401,400.00. Once he signs though, he'll count as $5,281,680. Reason for this is that teams are allowed to sign 1st round picks to anywhere from 80% to 120% of their rookie slot, and traditional teams always sign players to 120%. By holding off on Ingram, Lakers are preserving $880,280 in cap space.
Marcelo Huertas' reported deal will have him earning $ 1,625,000.00 next year. His current cap hold $ 1,074,636.00. By waiting to sign him, Lakers are saving $550,364. Lakers can use part of the room exception to give Huertas the contract he agreed to once the cap has been used up.
Tarik Black's cap hold is currently $ 1,180,431.00. Reportedly he will be starting off next year at $6,191,000. By holding off on his deal, lakers save a whopping $5,010,569. Reason the lakers can hold off is that they have early bird rights (2 seasons with the team), and these rights allow you to pay a player 104.5% of the average nba salary, which is coincidentally set at $6.191 million.
In total, holding off on these deals is manipulating the salaries in a way that is creating an extra $6,441,213 cap space.
Then you have Nick Young who currently makes $5,443,918. If you stretch him, his remaining $11,112,585 would get counted against the cap over 5 yrs, meaning $2,222,517 per yr. That would create an additional $3,221,401 in cap.
In total lakers are looking at around 13.6 in cap to make a deal rather than a rather insignificant amount without these moves.
What possibilities does this open up? Lakers could hypothetically trade D'Angelo Russell and Zubac for Russell Westbrook and Andre Roberson. They'd be able to use cap space to absorb the salary difference. Then they can turn around and match salaries by trading Louis Williams, Jose Calderon, Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram, and Anthony Brown for Demarcus Cousins and say Rudy Gay. Recall rookies can be traded 30 days after signing their deal.
Westbrook/Huertas
Clarkson/Roberson
Gay/Lance Stephenson - Kevin Martin vet min?
Deng/Nance
Cousins/Mozgov/Black
just an example, who else do you think is this unnamed trade target that the lakers could use cap space to facilitate to acquire?
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