Lakers include bewildering incentive in Spencer Dinwiddie's contract

After staying dormant during the NBA trade deadline the Los Angeles Lakers were able to add external help on the buyout market courtesy of Spencer Dinwiddie. Los Angeles used the rest of its Mid-Level Exception (after not using the full MLE on Gabe Vincent) to outbid other interested teams to secure Dinwiddie's services.

Dinwiddie is going to make just over $1.5 million with the Lakers after being waived from his $18.9 million contract. The veteran point guard will still make his full original salary, meaning that he will make over $20 million this season.

And if that was not enough, Dinwiddie has a chance to make even more money from the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers worked an NBA Championship incentive into Dinwiddie's deal that will earn him more money if the Lakers win it all. Just how much will Dinwiddie make, you may ask? One dollar.

No, we are not joking.

Lakers add ludicrous $1 incentive to Spencer Dinwiddie's contract

Update: Spencer Dinwiddie explained the $1 incentive in his contract, saying that it was an inside joke between he and his agent.

An NBA cap sheet can be complicated. There is a salary cap, a luxury tax, a first tax apron, and a second tax apron. There are Bird Rights, max contracts, trade exceptions, mid-level exceptions, bi-annual exceptions, hardship provisions, 10-day contracts, two-way contracts, exhibit 10 contracts... you get the point.

All of those complicated aspects of an NBA cap sheet can be explained and each has its own particular use. Knowing how a cap sheet works can be like speaking a different language, but once you understand it, it all comes together in a cohesive way.

And despite all of this, a $1 incentive still makes absolutely no sense. There is no real reason to defer $1 to Dinwiddie and only pay it to him if the Lakers win the title. If this $1 gave the Lakers enough room to sign one more player that would be a genius move, but it has absolutely no impact on whether or not LA can bring in anyone else.

The only reasonable expectation is that this is something Dinwiddie asked for in his contract to make headlines. After all, Dinwiddie was the first NBA player to convert part of his salary into cryptocurrency and he once set up a Bitcoin fundraiser to allow fans to determine where he would sign next (the fundraiser did not hit its goal, so fans did not get to decide).

Dinwiddie has done funky things with his contract before, and this feels like another example of that. Lakers fans will probably get some galaxy-brained explanation from Dinwiddie about why he did this sometime soon.