The Lakers are in desperate need of flexibility. Derrick Rose’s extra year makes it worse!
There’s a reason why the Los Angeles Lakers are basically praying that the Memphis Grizzlies will buy out Andre Iguodala and/or Darren Collison picks them over the Clippers.
The Lakers almost bankrupted their assets to get Anthony Davis this summer. Plus, the salaries of these potential players will be a whole lot cheaper and will clear the books for more flexibility.
To all the fans that don’t think that is important, just look at all the Lakers rumors (Including this one!) that make entirely no sense.
Alex Caruso is on a very modest two-year $5.5 million contract that is very easy to move at any time. Derrick Rose, on the other hand, is seemingly harder to move than even the Pistons realize considering he is older, injury-prone and not popular to teams that want to hold on to first-round picks.
At $7 million next year, let’s assume the deal was made and it was a disaster. His contract would be unmovable. Is it an unpopular take? Okay sure, but it’s the truth.
Now considering that the Lakers keep their intentions about as secret as the ingredients to Coca-Cola, they won’t tell anyone that they are creating as much cap space as possible to make a run at Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2020-21.
Does this mean that the Lakers will GET the “Greek Freak”? No. But you can’t cross the bridge without having the money to pay the toll. The Lakers have done their due diligence hiring Jason Kidd, who was Giannis’ first coach and is given credit for his development early in his career.
His brother Kostas is currently in the G-League, something for his older brother to think about.
Finally, it’s the Lakers. No one thought Shaquille O’Neal would come in the late ’90s. Who thought LeBron James would be a possible option last year? Anthony Davis?
Superstar players command max contracts. Those contracts are impossible without salary cap flexibility. Oh, by the way, the salary cap actually goes down due to the Daryl Morey fiasco.
League office is expected to deliver updated projections as soon as later today, an accommodation allowing for teams to make more informed financial and roster decisions ahead of next Thursday's trade deadline. Loss of China revenue a primary factor in anticipated decline. https://t.co/4DKjtmpfn8
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 30, 2020
Convinced yet? Maybe this will reason will.