Almost Unfair To Not Trade Kuzma

[Dr Aki]

the lakers are so close to the hard cap, it's impossible to trade multiple (low salary) players for one player

it would destroy the team depth, simply because the lakers would be unable to replace them, even with minimum players

[lazybatman]

He's worth extending. It's a bit like young JaVale. He used to make bonehead plays and people thought he was bad because the bonehead plays stand out. JaVale was good for a young player though and so is Kuzma.

He had 4th most minutes per game on a championship team last year. He's a few years from prime. He's had altered roles every year of his career. Kuzma is worth paying to keep.

Caruso, Kuzma, Schroeder, THT all are looking for a payrise next off-season. Lakers likely benefit of each of them reduce the others minutes.

He may actually not be worth extending...

They broke off extension talks... Rumors are he wasn't happy to be told he's still going to have to battle for court time with guys like Mathews, Morris, and Trez... He's also supposedly seaking a "Sizable" raise... Right now he's at a little under $4m/yr... So who knows what that could be, but I'm guessing double-digits, which I don't think we can afford to do for what he puts on the court... Even $8M/yr like KCP would be a huge hit to our future flexibility.

At the very least, I think the idea that we could extend him on the cheap is probably unrealistic at this point... He's looking to finally get paid, or get a good role, not sign on the cheap AND fight for PT...

I've been talking about extend and trading him... If we did that, he'd be eligible for around $7.67/3yrs... I don't know if he'd take that, but he might if we could find him a guaranteed starting role.
Just not sure who we could get for around $8M/yr...

Well KCP is making $13m next season. I imagine Kuzma would want $10m/year minimum.

Lakers can afford it if Kuzma is worth that money on the FA market as he likely gets better when he settles into a role.

He also has decent value in that he can fill a role from SG to PF. His flexibility is pretty valuable and he works hard brings a nice culture to the team.

TJ Warren is the best comparison for Kuzma in the league. Here is a comparison of Kuzma's last season to Warrens season prior to getting a $50m/4 year extension. Warren vs Kuzma
Similar numbers though TJ put in more work on getting offensive boards while also kept the TOs to half of Kuzma. I'd probably put Kuzma's value at around $46m/4 based on last seasons numbers, which is about $10.27m in 21-22 season. If Kuzma gets any better than last season then that will climb.

Nice marker and comparison in Warren. I think and I believe several others do too that Kuz would get 16-18 ppg easy on a weaker team where he gets more minutes. I don't dispute the 15-18m/Y contract he could fetch with those numbers, if he were a slightly better 3 point shooter.

I wanna highlight, that this is not a random non contender team though. Playing in the spotlight, for the WC Lakers, next to Lebron, has got him a championship and a 4m/Y Puma deal, which some legit superstars in the league don't have. The minute his contract goes up to that 15m kinda number, he becomes Danny Green who is a certainty to be traded off the Lakers, cos he doesn't belong.

[MarxyLebronist]

His contribution is negative. His trade value is nil anyway.