Lakers Rumors: Possible high-profile buyout candidates this summer

Now that the Los Angeles Lakers season is officially over and they are not a part of the NBA lottery in less than ten days, Lakers rumors will be attached to the buyout market. Lake Show Life realizes that this franchise never goes small so here are four high-profile players that they possibly can sign off the buyout market.

It seems funny that the Los Angeles Lakers ended their season with a disappointing six-game defeat to the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the playoffs. The season started with so much promise after winning the NBA Finals with a 21-6 start to co-sign the dominance in Lakers Nation.

Then…

• Anthony Davis goes down for much of the season with Achilles tendinosis.
• LeBron James gets undercut by Solomon Hill and suffers a high ankle sprain.
• Dennis Schroder brought enough drama with his inconsistent play and contract negotiations that even Dwight Howard’s first tenure in the purple and gold wasn’t that bad.
• Frank Vogel’s insistence on fitting Andre Drummond in the center spot blew up team chemistry.
• COVID-19 protocols. 

As much as mainstream media tried to sell the Lakers’ chances with “LeBron James has not lost in the postseason this early in his career” nonsense, the Lake Show Life staff knew that this team would never last past the second round with this team as constructed.

With Anthony Davis and LeBron James needing a few months off to heal major injuries, the front office will be busy looking ahead having to make some major changes. With the salary cap restrictions the Lakers face, this will be an interesting challenge to start the summer.

Research for this article and other observations shows the early maximum-salary projections for next season (Barring any colossal financial losses!), will stand around the $112 million range. As you can see in the video, the Lakers ALREADY eat up $102 million of that.

Below are the four players that are guaranteed to be on the books at this time. Marc Gasol would be on this list but let’s assume he’s playing with his brother next year in Barcelona Spain. Montrezl Harrell has a player option, but does anyone believe that he’s going to tolerate Frank Vogel’s rotations for a full 82 game season? After how this season ended? PFFT!

• LeBron James: $41,180,544
• Anthony Davis: $35,361,360
• Kyle Kuzma: $13,000,000 (However, the next season, Kuzma has a player option that will give him $13 million).
• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: $13,038,862. (However, the following season, only $4,888,118 is guaranteed. If not waived by June 28, 2022, the Lakers owe the full contract of 14,004,703).

The Los Angeles Lakers are in championship or bust mode.

Any media outlet that says differently is clueless. LeBron James commands over $40 million over the next two seasons (19 and 20 right?) and Anthony Davis will eventually join him in a couple of seasons.

Now Rob Pelinka has to fill out the roster with players who want to join the… “I want to win an NBA championship with LeBron” program. The Lakers still have to make the decision to re-sign Dennis Schroder, Talen Horton-Tucker, and Alex Caruso. These are players who will be presumably complementary pieces for next season’s title run.

Rob Pelinka spoke on the franchise’s goals on building a championship roster via CBS Sports. 

"“Jeanie and the ownership group has empowered the front office to do one thing and that’s to smartly build a roster to win championships,” “That’s been the hallmark of this team since Dr. Buss acquired it, and continues to be today. Clearly all 30 NBA teams are confined by a salary cap, so we’ve got to be smart about how we put all the puzzle pieces together, but there is only one goal, and it’s doing it smartly to have a championship-caliber team. “I think next year of course, hopefully with all of our fans being able to come back and be a part of the building, we owe them the work to start the process of retooling and having a championship-caliber team that can do special things next year, and that’s the driving passion and there’s alignment there between Jeanie, the front office, the coaches and our players that that will always be the goal.”"

Lakers Governor, Jeanie Buss went on record stating that the team is willing to pay the luxury tax to get title number 18 and possibly more in the LeBron era.

We’ll see. The Lakers only have six players under contract for next season (Adding Harrell and Gasol!), but when the first-round pick is factored in the mix, the Lakers have almost $115 million already committed to their roster.

So what does that mean? It means the Lakers can only go for players who want to win a title while sacrificing financially taking a HUGE pay cut to as the media calls it…Help LeBron James win his 5th NBA championship and join the storied Lakers championship history books.

Since the NBA is a copycat league, the blueprint of this exercise will be what the Brooklyn Nets did signing Jeff Green in the offseason and nabbing Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge off the buyout market.

Let’s get started with our own Lakers rumors mill of high-profile buyout players Rob Pelinka needs to take a strong look at.

Again…these are players that would come from the BUYOUT MARKET! Let’s begin…