3. The Los Angeles Lakers are probably going to be ugly after LeBron James leaves
LeBron James typically leaves teams behind in bad positions and it is hard to sit here and say that he is not going to do the same thing to the Lakers. It seems like LeBron has, at most, two more years in the purple and gold. His contract expires after next season and he can sign a one-year deal to free himself up to sign with whatever team drafts Bronny in 2024.
And of course, there is the potential of this blowing up with all of the reported tension and LeBron just outright leaving after the 2022-23 season. While Rich Paul has done his best job of denying tensions recently, we have seen this play out with LeBron before and a lot can happen in a year and a half.
So let’s say the Lakers actually are able to pay Monk a market-value contract. How would they be able to do that? If they can convince a team like Oklahoma City to take on Russell Westbrook’s contract without giving much salary in return for draft capital. If that happens, the Lakers will have some money to work with.
They could offer Monk a deal around $9 million per year or could even go up to the full Mid-Level Exception. Regardless of what it is, if the Lakers can pull off the unlikely dream trade of Westbrook, they can offer Monk a fair deal.
But would that be best for Monk’s career? Sure, in theory, the first season or two might be better than this season but I still would not bank on LeBron staying at this level and AD staying healthy. Then, once LeBron leaves, Monk is going to be stuck on an irrelevant team seeing his value diminish as nobody really cares about the 30-52 Lakers.
Could Monk ignore all of this and return to the Los Angeles Lakers? Absolutely. Is it the best thing for his career to get out of LA while he can? Probably.