The Los Angeles Lakers have built an intriguing team around Anthony Davis and LeBron James, hoping the 2019-20 NBA season is where they climb back to the top of the NBA mountain.
They added shooters like Danny Green, Quinn Cook, Troy Daniels, Avery Bradley, and Jared Dudley, knowing that having floor spacers is critical to making teams pay for focusing too much on their two All-Star players.
The Lakers will combine the new arrivals with returners like Alex Caruso, Rajon Rondo, Kyle Kuzma, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to make the Lakers a serious threat from behind the arc. That said, Los Angeles went to great lengths to structure the deal of most of their players so they expire in the 2021 NBA offseason.
On this episode of the Lakers Nation Podcast, host Trevor Lane brings on salary cap expert Keith Smith to break down what the team’s plan might be. Do they have a major target in mind already or are they simply focusing on maintaining flexibility as James inches closer to the end of his career? Plus, what would the opportunity cost be if the Lakers decide to keep as much cap space open as possible for 2021 and would James be on board with that?
Plus, we dive into the NBA’s push to fix the rampant tampering problems that were evident this summer. Agreements between teams and players were leaked well in advance of the official start to the free agency period and a recent comment from Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN suggests that Kawhi Leonard had contact with Paul George about teaming up well before he hit free agency. Can the NBA prevent player-to-player tampering without resorting to a level of surveillance that few would be comfortable with?
Additionally, what do these changes in the way tampering rules are enforced mean for the Lakers? Should their pursuit of Davis and his demands to be traded to Los Angeles be considered part of the problem that the NBA is attempting to solve or was his situation different because he was set to become an unrestricted free agent in 2020?
We break down all of that and more as we get ready for the long-awaited start to the NBA season. Subscribe, rate, and review the Lakers Nation Podcast on Apple Podcasts.
