The Los Angeles Lakers made a number of moves this summer, including signing the biggest free agent of them all, LeBron James. They also added Rajon Rondo, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Lance Stephenson, JaVale McGee and Michael Beasley in free agency.
It’s a motley crew of free agents to add to the young core, but might there be method to the madness? The Lakers signed each of them to one-year contracts, which gives them an intriguing number of expiring deals to offer up at the trade deadline should a superstar hit the market, as our own Trevor Lane and Keith Smith of RealGM discuss on this episode of the LN Pod.
Even if a trade doesn’t materialize, the Lakers are in excellent position to land a max-level free agent on the market next summer.
With big names like Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler, Klay Thompson, and more potentially available, the team will have plenty of options to improve.
Of course, the one hurdle that will need to be cleared in order to free up space is Luol Deng’s contract. He will make $18.8 million next season, but the Lakers will have some options in order to purge some or all of his salary from the books.
While it looks as though the most likely scenario would involve waiving Deng and stretching his contract, there has also been some talk about Deng potentially being done playing basketball. We discuss the cap ramifications if that were to happen.
On top of that, we discuss the Lakers’ center position, which they seem to be piecing together without spending the big bucks.
This is our 100th episode of the LN Pod so we have a ton to talk about, to listen just click the link above.
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