The Boston Celtics recently traded Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Paul George, two firsts, and two seconds. During his press conference after the move, Brad Stevens said that he didn’t think the Celtics could afford to have two players making up 70% of the cap. That’s a reality the Los Angeles Lakers are going to get very, very close to with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.
Reaves just signed a new, giant extension to remain with the Lakers this summer. By the time the final year of Reaves’ contract (2029-30) comes around, Doncic is going to be in the first year of his new contract, which will almost undoubtedly be a max contract. At that point, he and Reaves will combine for nearly 62% of the cap.
It’s not exactly like the situation the Celtics were in, but it’s close enough to draw the comparison. Building around the new CBA is hard. The Celtics learned that, and the Lakers could be set up to learn it, too.
Lakers could have to learn from Celtics' Jaylen Brown cap issue
During his chat with the media, Stevens put an emphasis on the difficulties of building a team under the current CBA. Maybe things will change by the time the Lakers have to deal with it, but if not, they could be in a similar situation.
Stevens noted that when the Celtics won a championship, Jayson Tatum and Brown took up just 47% of the cap. From there, the Celtics were able to build out the rest of the roster.
But before the Celtics decided to trade Brown, he and Tatum’s cap hit climbed up to 70%. At that point, he felt like it was too difficult to effectively build a championship-caliber team.
Doncic is a max-contract player. The Lakers are going to keep paying him for as long as he wants to be paid in LA. And right now, Reaves is worth the money that the Lakers gave him.
But once that first season of Doncic’s next extension comes around, the two LA stars are going to make up almost 62% of LA’s book. That’s not quite 70%, but it’s right there.
When that time comes around, the Lakers may end up finding similar troubles to the ones the Celtics dealt with before they decided to trade Brown.
With the way the Brown trade situation went down, it’s a reality the Lakers cannot ignore, even if it is a few years away.
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