Los Angeles Lakers: A Dennis Schroder sign-and-trade isn’t happening

Perhaps the biggest storyline still remaining in NBA free agency is Dennis Schroder. Schroder’s fall from grace has been a very interesting thing to follow as he reportedly rejected a four-year, $84 million contract from the Los Angeles Lakers during the season and now does not have a team for the 2021-22 season.

Schroder will eventually find a team to play for as he is still a talented rotation player, he just is not going to get anywhere close to what he wants, let alone what the Lakers offered him a few months ago.

One option that has still been floating around the rumor mill is a sign-and-trade. The Boston Celtics appear to be the most viable candidate, with some even predicting the two sides to pull off a sign-and-trade to get Schroder in Boston.

While a Schroder sign-and-trade seemed inevitable four weeks ago, with the current status of the Los Angeles Lakers, it just is not a viable option.

Why the Los Angeles Lakers won’t sign-and-trade Dennis Schroder.

Even though Schroder is not getting the deal he wanted he should be getting a deal in the tens of millions. Perhaps it is a one-year prove-it deal worth $10 million. He probably would have accepted the MLE from another team earlier in the offseason, so maybe it is something along the lines of two years, $25 million.

Either way, a safe range to estimate Schroder’s salary next season is $10-13 million with an absolute ceiling of around $16 million. Thus, the Lakers would have to take on a similar contract.

The proposed trade that is linked above has the Los Angeles Lakers taking on Josh Richardson, who fits the bill for the salary. Richardson is making $11.6 million, which fits right into our $10-13 million range.

Boston just acquired Richardson and it can be argued whether or not the team would want to trade him. There is also a debate to be had about if the Lakers would even want Richardson. None of that is relevant as there is an overarching reason why this won’t happen.

The luxury tax. The Los Angeles Lakers are not going to trade Dennis Schroder as they do not want to take on a larger tax bill, plain and simple. While Jeannie Buss has not outright said that they don’t want a bigger tax bill, they have already confirmed that with their actions.

The Lakers let Alex Caruso walk on a four-year, $37 million deal despite Caruso’s camp reportedly going back to the Lakers and giving them one last chance to counter as he wanted to stay in LA. That should tell us all we need to hear.

If the Lakers were to take on another $11.6 million in salary (that is a good in-between point of our range) then they would be just under $28 million ($27.95 million) over the cap. We will round up to $28 million for simplicity’s sake.

Using last year’s luxury tax tiers, the Lakers would be paying $2.975 for every dollar they are over the luxury tax. Multiply that by $28 million and the Lakers would be paying $83.3 million in tax alone.

Right now, according to Spotrac, the Lakers are projected to owe $33.1 million in tax. That is an additional $50 million for a mediocre rotation player.

Sure, the Los Angeles Lakers are the second-most valuable team in the league and have money to spend and I personally don’t care if they have to spend that much in tax alone. But if they were not going to do it for Alex Caruso then they aren’t going to do it for a Schroder sign-and-trade.