Los Angeles Lakers: How to trade for DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry

How the Los Angeles Lakers make this work financially

The quartet of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry would take up nearly the entire salary cap, so the Lakers would have to utilize things such as bird rights and minimum contracts.

Since they are conducting a sign-and-trade the Lakers also cannot go over the tax apron, so they are hard-capped. That makes it tricky to work out, but it definitely is doable. First, let’s break down the players that would still be on the roster.

• LeBron James, $41.18 million
• Anthony Davis, $35.36 million
• Kyle Lowry, $20 million
• DeMar DeRozan, $18 million
• Marc Gasol, $2.69 million
• Alfonzo McKinnie, $1.9 million
• $5 million dead cap hit for Luol Deng

We are assuming that Montrezl Harrell declines his player option and becomes a free agent, which seems like the most likely path with how he was used in the NBA Playoffs. That brings the total of those six players up to $124.13 million. The hard cap is $136.6 million.

The Lakers would have to punt on re-signing Alex Caruso AND using their mid-level exception. The rest of the roster would have to be filled out with minimum players, who constitute a $1.6 million cap hit.

That means the Lakers can sign seven veteran minimum players. They can get some shooters (JJ Redick, Ben McLemore, Carmelo Anthony) some bigs (Dwight Howard, Markieff Morris) and even a point guard (Jeff Teague) if needed.

It would bring the Lakers’ roster up to 13 players. That is passable and if they stagger the minutes correctly the depth should not be an issue.

It would take a pay cut from DeMar DeRozan as well as both players really wanted to join the Lakers. Is it the most likely thing to happen this offseason? Not at all. Is it possible? Absolutely.