What the Los Angeles Lakers could have looked like with DeMar DeRozan
By Jason Reed
The rest of the moves the Los Angeles Lakers could have made:
The Los Angeles Lakers would have saved $6 million in having both DeRozan and KCP instead of just having Russell Westbrook. Not only would the team have an extra player, but they would have more money to spend.
The Lakers would still be over the luxury tax and would not be able to use the Taxpayer’s Mid-Level Exception. However, the important thing here is that $6 million saved as that would have allowed the Lakers to re-sign Alex Caruso.
Granted, the team had the ability to re-sign him anyways but did not want to pay all of the tax implications of adding a $9 million salary. However, with the $6 million saved as well as the team needing one less minimum contract (because of KCP), Caruso would have only been a difference of about $500,000 more against the tax than the team already spent this offseason.
That means that Caruso is staying and the team can still re-sign Talen Horton-Tucker. As far as the other free agents are concerned, we do not want to change who the Lakers ended up signing with the value of hindsight. While I argued for the team to sign guys like Nemanja Bjelica and Otto Porter, trading for DeRozan would not have changed who they valued in free agency.
Thus, to round out the rest of the roster the Lakers would have signed Kendrick Nunn to the Taxpayer’s MLE, Malik Monk, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Trevor Ariza, Wayne Ellington, Dwight Howard, Avery Bradley and Austin Reaves.