Don’t be fooled by all the big names in this years free agency and thinking that those are the only good players available. At the time of writing this article there are 40 solid free agents that could help fill important roles for championship contenders. Here is where it gets interesting. Lets first identify who the actual championship contenders are going into next years NBA season:
- Los Angeles Lakers
- Boston Celtics
- Orlando Magic
- Miami Heat
It’s safe to predict that the team out of this list of 4 that takes best advantage of signing some of these available free agents is the team that has the upper hand in winning next years title. With that being said, let’s take a look at the free agents that are available this off-season that the Lakers could potentially snag.
Note: each free agent listed is an UNRESTRICTED free agent. There are actually more free agents available than this, but this list consists of those who could actually contribute to a team and make an impact. An example of a free agent who did not make this list is Devean George, who is unrestricted but lacks the dexterity to really impact a teams performance.
Big’s Available (unrestricted)
- Joe Smith
- Theo Ratliff
- Brad Miller
- Shaquille O’Neal
- Zydrunas Ilgauskas
- Kwame Brown
- Ben Wallace
- Craig Smith
- Udonis Haslem
- Kurt Thomas
- Al Harrington
- Etan Thomas
- Louis Amundson
Guards Available (unrestricted)
- Marquis Daniels
- Tony Allen
- Nate Robinson
- Larry Hughes
- Acie Law
- Ronald Murray
- Jannero Pargo
- Luther Head
- Earl Watson
- Rafer Alston
- Luke Ridnour
- Eddie House
- Allen Iverson
Wings Available (unrestricted)
- Mike Miller
- Josh Howard
- Richard Jefferson
- Matt Barnes
- Tracy McGrady
- Sasha Pavlovic
- Michael Finley
- Jerry Stackhouse
- Quentin Richardson
- Ime Udoka
- Keith Bogans
- Roger Mason
- Rasual Butler
- Ronnie Brewer
- Raja Bell
source = http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=FreeAgents-10-11
Players in Bold: the players in bold are those who I think would fit in well with this current Lakers roster. The rest could be good additions, but not nearly as good as those in bold. At least in my opinion. What are your thoughts? Which free agents do you think the Lakers should pick up?
The Challenge = The Lakers Salary Cap Situation
The Los Angeles Lakers have some serious salary cap issues. From last year alone it is estimated that Dr. Buss will have to pay $21.4 million in Luxury Tax to the league offices by July 23rd. That’s quite a bit of money! A few players come off the books including Adam Morrison, Jordan Farmar, and Shannon Brown. But the Lakers are still way over the new Salary Cap.
The new Salary Cap is $58,044,000. The luxuy tax does not actually set in until the $70,307,000 mark. What happens if the Lakers go over the Luxeuy Tax limit of $70 million? Basically they will have to pay 1 tax dollar for every dollar they are over the limit. So lets look at the Lakers current payroll for this upcoming 2010-11 season:
- Kobe Bryant – $24,806,250
- Pau Gasol – $17,822,187
- Andrew Bynum – $13,842,332
- Lamar Odom – $8,200,000
- Ron Artest – $6,322,320
- Sasha Vuyacic – $5,475,113
- Luke Walton – $5,260,000
- Total = $81,728,202
source = http://hoopshype.com/salaries/la_lakers.htm
This puts the Lakers $11,421,202 over the luxary cap already!!! Notice that this does not include guard/locker room leader Derek Fisher. He still NEEDS to be resigned.
Now there is something called the MLE (mid level expection) which is a limit of $5.765 million that a team can use to sign a player at “an average” salary which will not affect the salary/luxury tax limit. The Laker just used $4 million of that up with the signing of point guard Steve Blake, leaving them only $1.765 million left on their MLE.
So What Can The Lakers Do?
Well really it all depends on how you look at it. If it were basically any other organization the answer would be NOTHING, they are already way over the cap. But we all know how dedicated to winning and how competitive Dr. Jerry Buss is with his Lakers. So much so that he was willing to spend $20 million in luxury tax fees last year to repeat as champs.
If the Lakers do what they did last year, they essentially could spend another $10 Million in resigning Derek Fisher ($4 mill or so) and 2 other free agents (seen in list above). Or they could find a way to convice players like Kobe, Pau, Bynum, and Odom to take some pay cuts in order to bring in a few more guys.
Either way they do it, if the Lakers want to 3-peat they are going to have to find a way to bring back Derek Fisher for his leadership and sign someone to backup Ron Artest at the small forward position if they want to beat a team like the Miami Heat in the finals.
