The flip side of your argument is the Los Angeles Lakers are still royalty when it comes to the NBA. The most superstars, the most championships, the greatest fanbase in league. Make it in LA and you’ve done it in the hardest place with the greatest pressure in the league. Nothing tops being a champion as a Laker and that’s not going to change. Our next great coach could be Darvin Ham.

I just hope the FO learned the lessons from the last coaching search…conducted just three short years ago….

Can’t think of Slava without thinking of DaveM.

Agreed. At home and abroad there’s a lot of anger out there.

I chat with Dave M on the FB from time to time.

Aloha, Michael,

Great post. Despite the various areas of dysfunction, the Lakers scouting department led by the Buss brothers keeps coming up with players who can contribute and become solid rotation players. Reaves and Caruso are both excellent examples. Be great if we could find another this year.

I’m not as high on the importance of minimum salary players. We had some good and some bad and that’s pretty much what you can expect from those players in my opinion. For every Monk, you have a couple of Jordans and Bradleys.

More important to me is the performance of the three or four non-superstar, non-minimum salary players. Last season, we only had three – Westbrook, THT, and Nunn – and Russ and THT regressed while Nunn never made the floor.

The Lakers will hopefully get two rotation players from trading Russ and a pick, one from trading THT and a pick, and two from their full MLE and BAE. To me, the benefit of getting the full $10.3M MLE and the $4.1M BAE are worth hard capping.

Those are our five shots at landing legitimate rotation players this summer in my opinion. How good we will be will, of course, depend on LeBron and AD staying healthy and the non-superstar, non-minimum salary players coming through.

Thanks for reading Buba. Warren is certainly intriguing but missing 2 years is going to hurt his value. I would take a shot on a vet minimum contract but I don’t think I would go more. We have two players that already are having health issues. That’s why trades for guys with injury histories like Gordon in Houston and Hayward in Charlotte make me nervous.

Other than enjoying some great basketball, we have to look for little blessings while we wait for next year like Harden imploding again in the playoffs and the Celtics blowing the series at home.

And I don’t understand the fascination with Doc Rivers as the potential Lakers coach. If we’re going to have a bias in favor of former Lakers, we should also have a bias against anything that smells of Celtics.

James over Westbrook? I’d still go to battle with Russ. Two seasons ago I might have said differently…maybe…but I’ve never seen the dude play well when the moment demands it of him. He shrinks quicker than a Shrinky Dink in the oven. D-Mo unlikely to abandon his “basketball Jesus” (his words, not mine) so I don’t see them trading him when he opts in. Ain’t no “if” about that one. James needs to have extra dollars for the club he’s rehabbing his hamstring at.

Valid argument since the Nuggets were not a great team.
League needs to change title of award to Player of the Year.
MVP just confuses voters. We have an award for the regular season and the finals but not for the entire year.

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned about Monk is that he’s proven that he can thrive while playing with this version of Lebron. That’s not an easy feat and it’s partly what made losing Caruso so painful. You HAVE to have guys who know how to get in where they fit in and Monk was particularly adept at it. That fact alone makes him very valuable and less of a risk than bringing in a new guy who may or may not be able to adapt to Lebron. It ain’t for everyone… Perfect example were the dudes who surrounded Kobe on those back-to-back teams. Pau, LO, D-Fish, Metta/Ariza, Drew….they weren’t nearly the best players in the league but they knew what was needed to mesh with Kobe. That’s half the battle when playing with some of these transcendent mega-stars.

Aloha, Michael,

“If a team was every going to stretch a large contract it’s this one. If Russ gave up 5 mil in salary with the full MLE and Bi annual exception we could have up to 28 mil in spending power. Here are some names that I believe there salaries could fall to this year.”

…

Wish that were true as that’s a pretty good list of free agents. Unfortunately, buying out Russ for $42M and then only taking a $14M hit to the salary cap does not open up $28M in money to spend. It just spreads the $42M over three years.

Waiving and stretching Russ is not going to create any cap space for free agents. We would still be over the cap even if we renounced Reaves, Johnson, and Gabriel. The only money we will have for free agents will be our $6.4M MLE. If we hardcap ourselves, we could then have the full $10M MLE and $4M BAE, which is 8M more than without hard cap.

I do agree with you that it makes sense to hard cap ourselves so we can get an additional $8M to spend on free agents. That could be a big difference maker for this roster. Hard cap is almost a necessity.

…

Here’s a breakdown on what the Lakers would have available in the form of cap space were they to waive and stretch Russ.

Please let me know if I have any of the numbers incorrect. Easy to make mistakes with this salary cap stuff.

…

Russ makes $47,063,478 if he declines his player option. Taking away $5,000,000 million for buyout would leave $42,063,478, which would then cost the Lakers $14,021,159.33 in dead money per year for three years.

Here’s our salary cap situation

Russell Westbrook: $14,021,159
1. LeBron James: $44,474,988
2. Anthony Davis: $37,980,720
3. Talen Horton-Tucker: $10,260,000
4. Kendrick Nunn: $5,250,000

Total Guaranteed: $111,986,867

5. Stanley Johnson: $2,351,521
6. Wenyen Gabriel: $1,878,720
7. Austin Reaves: $1,563,518

Total Not Guaranteed: $5,793,759

8. Rookie Minimum $1,004,159
9. Rookie Minimum $1,004,159
10. Rookie Minimum $1,004,159
11. Rookie Minimum $1,004,159
12. Rookie Minimum $1,004,159

Cap Holds to 12 Roster Spots: $5,020,795

Total Salaries: $122,801,421
Salary Cap: $122,000,000

Lakers will be over the salary cap by $2,801,421

They could save $2,781,282 by not guaranteeing Johnson, Gabriel, and Reaves, but that would still leave them $20,139 over the salary cap.

In case you need more infi on Phil/Nurse: https://t.co/UoT0WPbQcb

— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) May 3, 2022

Lakers coaching update: Phil Jackson consulting Los Angeles on search for new head coach, per reporthttps://t.co/sOC8BcgS2T pic.twitter.com/z5W6b8aQKh

— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) May 3, 2022

This is why I continue to ask…why would a top-notch coach want to walk into this mess? If we can all see it as fans from the outside then you gotta wonder what’s being said inside among the coaching fraternity? The culture here is borderline toxic right now.

Good post, Michael. There’s no question that the Lakers’ ownership, front office, and coaching staff have made a lot of poor decisions the past two years that should make any player or coach thinking about joining the team have second thoughts.

We’re just fortunate that we have such an illustrious legacy, history, market, and fanbase that we can often overcome our own misfortunes to win regardless. Truth is we’ve left championships on the table because of incompetence.

Will that apply to teams looking to trade for Russell Westbrook? For those teams who might be thinking Russ they might be able to get a good year out of Russ, hope they didn’t see Russ this past season or hear his exit comments. Russ hasn’t helped his case. He’s essentially closed the door on returning to the Lakers, which other teams cleary see and note.

Fortunately, most of the teams who will be interested in trading for Russ are doing so as a financial transaction and plan on buying Russ out or flipping him at the trade deadline. None of the teams the Lakers are likely to trade Russ to – Pacers, Hornets, Knicks, Thunder, Pistons, and Rockets – are trading for Russ the player. They’re trading for Russ the expiring contract.

I’m more worried about how the Lakers dysfunction could adversely affect the coaching search or recruiting free agents with our MLE or, if we hard cap, our BAE. Those are the places where our incompetence can negatively impact us.

Aloha, Michael,

Execellent post and point about this summer. I agree 100% that the Lakers are going to need more than trades to contend next season. Frankly, they’re going to need a perfect storm of smart decisions, right players, good health, and lucky bounces like we had in the bubble to win it all. Not that that isn’t always a major but looking at the way the Lakers are going and the way the league is going, next year could be our best shot in this decade to win another title. And we’re going to be top ten candidate at best based on last year and our current situation.

But enough for reality. There’s no question the Lakers will have chances to move Russ. We’ll have to be lucky with the musical chairs but hopefully we’ll get a deal for Russ. I think if we can trade Russ for Hield and Brogdon, that could be the big move and maybe without a pick. There’s a part of me that also thinks looking for a sign-and-trade could open up chances to use the full MLE and BAE, which could get us two better rotation players.

Anyway, I’d feel a lot more comfortable if we had somebody other than Rob making the decisions and better contributors than Jeanie, Kurt, and Linda chiming in but it is what it is. Rob just needs to make smart moves. Hopefully, we’ll get dealt four aces and Rob will understand now is the time to go all in.

I appreciate it DJ but I think remarks with sexual connotations is crossing the line in what’s acceptable to me.

I’m sorry to hear this Michael, I must have missed that exchange but know that Sean also felt. Tom can have a heavy-handed way of enforcing his points and ideas without allowing for many other viewpoints to be seen in the same light. I don’t think he intends for some of those things to come off as being insulting but they do. Sean had a similar issue in a podcast , which I personally believe he took too far but also who am I to say how another person should feel or think? At any rate I do how you reconsider or at the very least continue to pop by from time to time. Regardless of the choice you make keep on enjoying life, be well and go Lakers.

I have apologized to Michael for my hurtful comment and have asked him to reconsider remaining as Blog Editor. I also explained that I never intended to accuse him of any sexual connection with Malik Monk and should have not used the words I did. I was trying to say he was just infatuated with a great young Lakers player much like I was with THT and then also with Monk. At any rate, my apologies for this happening. It’s my fault and I accept responsibility and will try hard not to allow it to happen again. I do hope Michael will accept my apology and reconsider. If not, my best wishes to him and he will always be welcome to return. Thanks.

I accept your apology Tom. One can strongly disagree with another but I just believe that the blog should be free of name calling and personal attacks. I feel this can result in greater participation amongst those in that visit the blog.

Thanks Buba

The assumption is that the Buss family’s ultimate goal is to win the title…they’ve shown in the past (and recently) that it isn’t. The business side is just as important and Lebron is great for business. They’ll pay what it takes to keep him here and continue to fill the arena, appear on national tv games, and rake in the money…title or no title. They did the same thing with Kobe’s last contract and proceeded to be the worst team in the league for about 5 seasons iirc. Time is always on the side of ownership.