The Rebuild: Los Angeles Lakers
LOS ANGELES — Welcome to my first idea for a series of articles, The Rebuild, an in-depth look at the state of certain franchises in the NBA, and what paths they can take to get back to playoff or even championship contention. For each article we're going to look at a struggling NBA franchise, and determine a path to success. For some this may prove to be difficult, *cough* Orlando Magic *cough*. To start us off, we're going to be taking a look at my own Los Angeles Lakers, one of the more popular and controversial team rebuilds we've seen in recent memory.
THE CAP SITUATION
As it stands, the Lakers are currently at $104,454,648, slightly over the salary cap of $99M. Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka, or more commonly referred to by the fanbase as "Maginka" have made it abundantly clear that they want max cap-space in the summer of 2018, and not one, but two max slots.
Having already sacrificed former No. 2 pick D'Angelo Russell to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for taking on Timofey Mozgov's 4 year/$64M contract, and plans to stretch Deng's contract over 11 YEARS, (yes, you read that right), the two have set their plan in motion, and after the D'Angelo trade, there's no turning back. The Lakers have to value somewhere to build this team, and as it stands now, there are three paths the Lakers can take to achieve max cap space this offseason.
1.) Clean House
The Lakers can get to the desired two-max slots if they make a couple moves to clean up their books for 2018. The first is to trade Clarkson and his $12.5M/year contract, which extends into the 2020 season. Then they would have to renounce Julius Randle's rights, if they haven't traded him, and clear his $12M cap hold. After stretching Luol Deng's contract for 11 years, at $3.3 million per season, the Lakers will hover at around $44,779,890 in salaries by the summer of 2018, plenty of money to play around with.
Now the question switches to whether or not the Lakers can convince free agents to come. This is going to prove to be a challenge Free agency prospects aren't as rosey as they were coming into the season, when Pelinka announced his grand plan. No one knows what LeBron is going to do, PG is already playing with an MVP-caliber player in Russell Westbrook, and Boogie is out for the season with an torn Achilles. The FA agent market is getting tighter, and in order to convince players like LeBron James and Paul George to play for the Lakers, this young squad needs to show major signs of improvement.
2.) Rebuild and Reload
This is a more sensible approach and one that the Lakers should seriously consider if they want a present and future. Starting in the 2019 season onward, the Lakers will control their first-round picks and given their track record of drafting, they'd be better served getting guys on cheap rookie contracts instead of trading them away for expensive players.
At this point, the Lakers go all in on the youth movement, ignore the marquee free agents, sign solid veterans and role players (not named Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng), go for another top-5 or 10 pick in 2019, and make a splash in free agency then, when guys like Klay Thompson, Nikola Jokic, and Tobias Harris become available. This would also give the roster more time to develop under Luke Walton, create a more cohesive system for new players to come in to, and more importantly, preserve their cap space for guys who may very well be a better fit for this run and gun team.
3.) Worst Case Scenario
There is also a scenario where Maginka get a little desperate, and do something rash, such as offloading Deng with a couple future first rounders, losing Randle for nothing, or even worse, sign him to a max-type deal. They can sign Boogie to a five-year max contract, and he ends up being a shell of his former self (Laker fans have seen that before). They can completely whiff on all the big name free agents, rendering the D'angelo trade pointless. Maybe Lonzo decides to join his brothers in Lithuania and decide to dominate the Lietuvos krepšinio lyga <--- Lithuanian NBA
Conclusion
Obviously there are a number of ways the Lakers can rebuild, at the moment they seem dead set on signing marquee free agents this year, but as the season goes on, that outlook could change. The pragmatic approach would be to develop the young players and try and hit on a couple lottery picks. But it's hard to convince a guy like Magic, orchestrator of the fast-paced Showtime, to be patient. It's also difficult to get into the mind of General Manager Rob Pelinka, a guy who sometimes says things like this...
