The Los Angeles Lakers are currently trying to put together a run to not only make the NBA Playoffs this season but make some serious noise in said playoffs. The Western Conference is anyone’s to win and if the Lake Show can put together two healthy months in a row then it is theirs for the taking.
While the coaches and the players on the court are working hard to accomplish that, the front office should be working hard with one eye toward the upcoming offseason this summer. There are three tasks, in particular, that the team should already be working on.
3 offseason tasks the Lakers should already be working on:
1. A new contract for Austin Reaves
Austin Reaves is a restricted free agent this summer and there has already been a lot of talk about his contract situation. Reaves has really blossomed into one of the most important role players on the Lakers and there is no doubt that the team is going to try to bring him back.
The Lakers should already be in contact with Reaves’ agents and should be trying to get a deal agreed to before he hits the restricted free-agent market. Because he has two or fewer years of league service, another team can offer Reaves a contract that pays him around the same that the Lakers can the first two years with a huge pay jump in years three and four.
Los Angeles can match this but they would have to take on the yearly cap hit instead of the average cap hit, which the other team can do. This is important as instead of Reaves being a $24 million or so cap hit a year, he would end up being a max cap hit in years three and four for LA.
As great as Reaves is, he does not need to be taking up around $35 million in cap space three years from now. LA needs to work out a deal as soon as possible to avoid this.
2. A new contract for D’Angelo Russell
D’Angelo Russell was the big contract that the Lakers got in return in the Russell Westbrook trade. There had to be one that LA got in return and all things considered, even with his flaws, Russell was perhaps the best large salary to take on.
Russell is on an expiring deal that gives the Lakers more flexibility this offseason to evaluate the situation. This is far better than if Russell was already locked into a deal that paid him for three more years as it could have created a similar problem as Westbrook’s previous contract.
That being said, the Lakers should already be trying to work out a deal that keeps Russell in LA past this season. The team has his Bird Rights so they can go over the cap to re-sign him and keeping that contract in LA would be key.
Russell should not get a max contract and should probably get a deal similar to the one Jalen Brunson got from the Knicks last offseason. This is far better for the Lakers than just losing his deal for free.
The team would be getting another chance at running it back with this core and would also have the ability to move the contract in the future in a trade if need be.
3. Create a shortlist of prospects for the 2023 NBA Draft
It feels foreign but the Los Angeles Lakers are actually going to have a first-round pick to use in the 2023 NBA Draft! The Lakers have not drafted a prospect in the first round of the NBA Draft since 2018 when the team took Moritz Wagner with the 25th overall pick.
Of course, there is a chance that the Lakers could trade their first-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. Los Angeles gets the worse of either its own pick or the New Orleans Pelicans’ pick and as it stands right now, the lottery odds are nearly identical for the two picks. It might only be one pick apart.
The team did this in 2020 when it flipped its first-round pick alongside Danny Green to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Dennis Schroder. At this rate, it would be better for LA to actually use its first-round pick to bring in more young talent.
It appears that the Lakers will either make the play-in or sneak into the NBA Playoffs as the sixth seed at best. Realistically, we should expect Los Angeles to pick between the 13th and 18th pick.
While the team is not going to be able to land a cream-of-the-crop prospect this late in the draft, there is still a lot of potential talent available and there always could be a diamond in the rough. Rob Pelinka should be watching the NCAA Tournament and scouting tape just as much as he is watching LA chase a playoff spot right now.
But who knows, the team will probably end up flipping someone with the pick for a marginal improvement that doesn’t end up working out.