You also may be wondering if the Cavs can afford to get Yao or Shaq.
You may not be wondering either of these, but too bad. I'm telling you anyway.
The NBA Salary cap should be around $60 million next year, with the Luxury Tax cutoff at around $75 million or so. Basically each NBA team can exceed the salary cap, but they only have to pay the luxury tax penalty if they go over the luxury tax threshold. This penalty is dollar-for-dollar (i.e. if your payroll is $80M and the cutoff is $71M, you pay a penalty of $9M)
Here is what the Lakers' payroll looks like for this past season and the next few seasons. (from hoopshype.com)
Things to point out:
- The Lakers, even without Ariza, Odom, DJ Mbenga, Josh Powell, and Shannon Brown are already close to the payroll they had for this past season.
- A big reason is the $10M raise due to Drew Bynum
*Disclaimer: There are many exceptions when it comes to NBA salary cap figures, and I won't be taking these into account. Therefore, the numbers may be off by a few million dollars, but no more than that.*
First things first, Kobe is going to opt out and the Lakers are going to have to go FDR and get him a new deal. As it stands Kobe would make $23M next year. I honestly think he'll take a new deal that's backloaded with a heavy signing bonus, so the Lakers can have some more money to use on other players. I think Kobe's 09-10 salary actually will come back down toward the $21M he made this past year. Kobe would do that.
Ideally you'd love to bring down Walton and Vujacic at least 500K apiece, down to their actual value to the team, but that's unlikely.
Also, Fisher's $5M would be nice to play with, but his contract was too short and cannot be extended or renegotiated. Additionally, even if he retires, his salary counts against the cap.
The most intriguing player is Adam Morrison. He isn't playing. He can be good, but honestly is he any better or any different than Sasha Vujacic? You only need one of those types of guys on a team.
The easiest way to get his salary off the books is to trade him for draft picks. Alternatively, they could release him or trade him for cash, but some amount of his salary would remain on the books.
Sun Yue is probably gone, along with Shannon Brown, unless the Lakers are able to sign only one of Ariza and Odom.
It looks like the Lakers can free up about only $3.7M to $7.7M to pay Odom and Ariza, if that. Yowzas.
This begs the question: How much are Trevor Ariza and Lamar Odom worth?
In terms of height, age, player efficiency rating and my own opinion, I think Trevor Ariza is similar to Tayshawn Prince, Richard Jefferson, and Ron Artest. If you take their average salaries, per year, you get $11M. Ariza is still young and has had injury problems and really only one solid year, so I don't think he'll go for $11M, but I think he'll probably get at least $8M.
I believe Lamar Odom wont get a huge raise and should probably end up around $13M per year, give or take $1M.
Combined, between Odom and Ariza, the Lakers are looking at around $20M, give or take.
There are only three scenarios under which the Lakers will be able to resign Odom and Ariza:
1. Kobe takes a significant paycut down to about $17M, and Ariza and Odom also take cuts to stay with the team, totaling $14M. The Lakers will pay luxury tax of about $4M.
2. The Lakers say "Eff it! We're doing it live! Bring on the luxury tax!," and sign everyone at their asking price and pay a luxury tax of $19M or so.
3. Find a way to get Vujacic and Walton off the books, most likely by trading them for draft picks and/or cash. This will free up another $10M, in addition to Morrison's $5M, and a small paycut from Kobe later, you are nicely right at the luxury tax threshold.
I don't think scenario 1 or 3 are going to happen. Though the team may not lose much by way of productivity numbers-wise, it's nice to have players like Vujacic and Walton on your bench to chip in every now and then. You just don't want to pay them too much to do it.
I think scenario 2 is actually most likely, and highly viable. In 07-08 the Knicks paid $19.7M in luxury tax and the Mavs paid $19.6M, so it's not like there is no precedence for it. Also, if you can bring back the entire roster, you figure to make it to at least the Finals again, and the revenue from playoff tickets and merchandise sales stemming from Finals gear and Championship gear may pay a good chunk, if not all, of the luxury tax.
In short, the Lakers could sign them if they really wanted, but given the numbers presented to them, it's going to be really hard unless they can get some guys to take paycuts.
Later this week I'll take a look at Shaq or Yao to the Cavs, both in terms of salary and if I think it would even make a big difference.
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