AK-

Gets 3 Mil for signing a bunch of paperwork promising that he doesnt have to do jack squat?

.....

Aaron McKie's my hero. Can I be like Aaron McKie when I grow up?

Ariza is under contract already for next year.

Sasha has a qualifying offer and Ronny is a restricted FA.

We will be 75 million and rising. It will be hard to match if Ronny or Sasha gets a good offer

http://www.hoopshype.com/salaries/la_lakers.htm

The following year, we can get some financial stablity.

More regarding the re-signing of Turiaf/Ariza/Vujacic:

As I insinuated at the end of my last post, another possibility to allow the Lakers to re-sign all three
of these good young players is to trade off either Odom or Gasol in the summer.

Odom and Gasol overlap slightly, though Odom is a better defensive player and Gasol is a better
offensive player. But both are reasonably valuable trading chips. If the Lakers wanted to re-sign
all three of Turiaf, Ariza, and Vujacic, but didn't want to get into Knicks level luxury tax to do it,
the best solution is to trade either Odom or Gasol. Get rid of a big contract, and the three smaller
contracts will fit more nicely.

Gasol would clearly be the easier one to shop, since he's better. In fact there's already at least
one suitor chomping at the bit... Chicago. If the Lakers could trade Gasol for Deng, that would be
ideal. Deng would probably start at around 10 million a year (as opposed to Gasol's 15, 16, 17 for
the next 3 years). If not Deng, then Nocioni. If it's Deng, then either Joachim Noah or Tyrus
Thomas could be included. If it's Nocioni, then I'd ask for both. The Lakers take back less salary,
and get 2 or 3 post players instead of just 1. Granted, Noah and Thomas are light on offense,
but their defense is exemplary, and they're cheap for a few more years.

Obviously, there would be other suitors if the Lakers put Gasol on the market. Everyone wants a
top 10 PF. How about Charlotte for Gerald Wallace and change? Or Seattle for Wilcox and Collison? How `bout Milwaukee? or Atlanta? or even Portland?

The trick is to get a deal that gets you a good player making 10 million or less and either some
players on rookie contracts or an expiring contract. One twist that occurs to me is that the
Lakers might be able to get a team they're trading Gasol to to sign-and-trade Ariza or Turiaf or
Vujacic as part of the deal. So, in other words, you'd turn Gasol's contract dollars into Nocioni,
Tyrus Thomas, Joachim Noah, and Sasha Vujacic on a multi-year contract. For the next three
seasons, you'd be paying all four of those players the same amount as you would have paid
Gasol alone. How's that for stocking up for the future?

Odom would be harder to trade, but not impossible. In one sense he'd be easier to trade than
Gasol, because his contract only runs one more year. Lamar and his family live in the New York
area in the offseason, so an ideal trade would be to one of three teams: New York, New Jersey,
or Philadelphia. All three of those would allow him more time with the family during the season, so
I'm sure he would appreciate it more then being traded to Milwaukee or something. So let's look
at those three...

New York: Lamar would be an excellent fit. SF/PF who can score a bit but prefers to facilitate,
and who actually plays defense. The Knicks are a team full of shoot first-second-and-third
players (Randolph, Curry, Robinson, etc.) who don't play much defense. The question is, what
could the Lakers get back that they would want? The only two players I'd really want from the
Knicks are David Lee and Renaldo Balkman. I doubt they'd give up Lee, but maybe Balkman plus
Malik Rose (7 million expiring) plus sign & trade one of the three Lakers FAs to match. That's a
pretty weak take for Lamar. Throw in New York's draft pick and maybe I'd consider it.

New Jersey: Shopping Jason Kidd right now to rebuild. Maybe they'd trade Lamar and his 1 more
year for Richard Jefferson and his 3 more years. It's not a huge cut in payroll, but it's 2 million less
for a better player. And Jefferson is a natural 3, which means less overlap with Gasol. And
Jefferson and Walton would be happy as clams with this trade. Other than that, there aren't a lot
of options on Jersey. Note that this is a trade the Lakers might be able to do before the trade
deadline, if they wanted to. Remember that Jersey was willing to take Odom for Jefferson in a
proposed 3-way deal with Charlotte before Charlotte backed out. Now if they could get Odom
with 2 less years on his contract, they might jump at the chance.

Philadelphia: They would have cap space in the summer, so the salaries wouldn't have to match.
If the Lakers could get two good young low-salaried players for Lamar, this might be a good place
to deal -- if they could get 2 or 3 of Jason Smith, Herbert Hill, Thaddeus Young, Rodney Carney,
or Reggie Evans, then they'd get a couple more low-salaried young players with upside and
dump a whole bunch of salary in the deal. Or maybe if Philly wanted to move forward with
Louis Williams at the point, it could be Odom for Andre Miller and then move Miller on to a third
team that needs a point guard (Cleveland? Atlanta? Miami? Portland?).

Two other teams worth mentioning as potential destinations for Lamar are Golden State and
Phoenix. I doubt the Lakers would want to trade Lamar either place, since they are in-division,
but those are the two worst rebounding teams in the league, and Lamar's strength is rebounding.

So there you have it. That's how the Lakers could keep all three of the talented young players
this summer without going deep into Luxury Tax territory. Sure, it would hurt to give up one of
Lamar or Pau, but if it meant they could keep all 3 of their good young role players and add one
or two other good players while keeping the salary down, it would be a good thing for the team.

Hmm, any chance Mihm passes on his player option to pursue a more lucrative deal elsewhere? (lol) Man, imagine if the Walton and Radmanovic contracts ended up costing us Turiaf and Ariza. Could happen. By the way, the Laker roster for 2011-12 and 2012-13 currently looks like this: Luke Walton. That's it.

The world is about to find out how good Kobe Bryant is ... he's finaly got real help ... even if Bynum gets back much later than we expected we're still going to compete for the 'ship this year ... yes we wont be as good defensively but Pau is a better offensive player at this point than bynum ... and now our good offense is about to become world class ... defenses can not lock in on kobe with Pau on the floor it's a wrap folks ... with offesnse not an issue, coaches can spend more time focussing on defense and while Pau might just be mediocre most of the times ... he can come up with crucial defensive stops (see youtube link below .. music gets better at the 4.30 mark ) ... Kobe has help, the rest of the league should be crapping it's pant ... without bynum we will still compete for our 1st post shaq ring ... whenever he returns we will officially begin our run at 5 str8 rings, can u scream dynasty ... and now lets get jiggy with it ...

The problem with being a killer the law is always against you ... but what happens when a cold blooded assasin bullies his boss into investing major loot in buying the cops ... the rest of the nba is about to wake up to a nightmare ... the assasin known as the mamba is now backed by the L(amar) A(ndrew) P(au) D(errick) and did we mention they've also got the mafia on their side, the mobb squad family

The nba where amazing is about happen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXyVdRMpfq0&NR=1

If spouses were as committed to each other as Mike T is to Kwame the divorce rate wouldn't be so high.

The funniest line on a Memphis blog:

ATTENTION: all T-Shirt designers and/or marketers, can we please have the following T-Shirts made and given away at the next Grizzlies game:

"We shopped Gasol to every NBA team for an entire year and all we got was this crummy T-Shirt"

Menphis T.

Majic,Worthy, and Nixon are wealthy people who are doing what they like to do not working for a buck like the rest of us.

occupant i think MT is italian

Heisler's article points out a lot of interesting tidbits about LO. Getting rid of his contract would exorcise the last bits of the Shaq-trade debacle. Like I said earlier, I think the final pieces slide into place this off-season into early next season. The Lakers just cashed in on a $9M expiring contract. LO's got a $14M expiring contract next year. If I were management, I'd keep him on the books but not resign him. That makes signing Drew to his big extension a little less painful. Having 4 players making $15M+ is a back breaker for any owner's wallet.

LO playing for a new contract might produce his best basketball to date next season. Coupled with a fully integrated Pau, a healthy Bynum, Kobe and Fisher's leadership, the continued improvement of the kids, perhaps a couple of key veteran additions (via the vets min) and the experience of this year's playoff run - next year is when they do the damage.

But after that? I don't think LO will be a Laker.

>>>As for this summer, I would try to use the mid-level to sign Sasha and Turiaf to complete our

Don't need to use the MLE. The Lakers have Bird rights on Sasha and Turiaf (and Ariza as well).
So they can pay them whatever they want (up to a max contract for each player's number of years
in the league) and they'd still have the MLE available.

So how much are they worth?

Turiaf, because of his size, is worth the most. I think Varejao's contract is a decent standard for
what Ronny's worth, since they make similar contributions for their teams. Varejao makes about
MLE money, and I think that's about what Ronny's worth as well. Bear in mind that there will only
be 2 to 4 teams with more than an MLE to offer this summer, and they'll be sniffing around guys
like Antawn Jamison and Shawn Marion.

If the Lakers offer Ronny a 4 to 5 year deal in the neighborhood of the MLE, I think he'd take it. If
the Lakers are slow to offer, and all the big names get snapped up, then someone might offer
Ronny more than an MLE, in which case the Lakers would have to make some hard decisions.
But I think Ronny, like Luke, will stay with the Lakers out of loyalty if they offer him a reasonable
contract.

Vujacic has really improved his value this season. His defense has been solid (not Bowenesque
by any means, but solid), and his shooting in games has finally caught up with his shooting in
practice. I'd love for the Lakers to be able to get him for about 3 million a year, but if he stays as
hot as he has been lately, I could easily see a team offering him a full MLE. Remember, Jason
Kapono got a full MLE last summer, and I think Sasha is better than Kapono. If we're lucky, Sasha
will sign for less with the Lakers out of loyalty. Worst case, maybe the Lakers can get the team
Sasha is going to to agree to a sign-and-trade where the Lakers get back a trade exception and
a draft pick, or something like that. Or Sasha could turn out to be the Lakers equivalent of Joe
Johnson -- some team wants to pay more than an MLE for him, but doesn't have the cap space,
so Lakers sign & trade him for some other decent player & picks.

Ariza is the wild card. When healthy, he's the closest thing the Lakers have to a lock-down wing
defender. And he can opt out next summer to try to get more money. If he's injured most of the
season, he may elect to stick with the 3 million for next season rather than risk opting out and
getting offered less. Based on what we've seen so far, I'd be willing to offer Ariza a contract in
the same ballpark as Luke. But if the Lakers are keeping both Luke and Lamar, and if Ariza opts
out, then he might be a good prospect for a sign and trade this summer.

>>>bench. I would also look to trade Chris Mihm and Vlad (or Luke) this summer or by next year’s
>>>trading deadline to free up some cap space and reduce redundancy (should be about $8.5 million).

Mihm's a little easier. If he'd actually get healthy and play even average, he would probably opt
out and try to get more than 2.5 million next summer. If he stays hobbled for the rest of the season,
then he'll probably stay with the Lakers, since he's not likely to get offered more than that until he
proves he's worth it. Next season, he'd be easy to trade, as he'd be an expiring contract.

Vlad and Luke. Tough call. They've both played below par this season, so they'd be hard to trade
right now, and it would be nearly impossible to get an expiring contract for either one.

Each has certain advantages over the other. Vlad is a better scorer and he's tall enough that he
can fill in at PF when injuries require it. But Luke is a slightly better defender, and a much better
all-around offensive player. At full health with Kobe, Gasol, Bynum, Fish, Farmar, Vujacic, and
Turiaf scoring, you don't really need another scorer on the floor, so Odom and Walton are nearly
ideal at the SF with those guys.

The ideal situation would be if both Vlad and Luke caught fire the rest of the season. If Vlad
started shooting like he did at the start of the season, then there will be a few teams who might
be willing to take on the rest of his MLE for a good shooter with limited defensive skills. If Luke
rested long enough to let his hip & ankle recover and got back to playing with more confidence,
his less-than-MLE contract might look appealing to a few teams. And then in the summer, the
Lakers could look to unload one or the other.

mike t,

>>>Gasol is the weakest defender in the league.

The way Kwame was playing lately, I think he would definitely take that title over Gasol.

The Lakers were playing great defense before Bynum got injured, and when he comes back, they
will go back to playing great defense. Gasol will be an improvement over Kwame defensively.
deal with it.

Oh, and in case you can't deal with it, there's speculation that Memphis might try to buy Kwame out.
If they do, then the Lakers could re-sign him for a veteran's minimum contract and he could park
his cake-throwing tukus over on the end of the bench and get DJ MBenga's minutes.

I have been reading all of the possible trades to cut salary so we can sign our young guys. I really do not see a problem. First an NBA top contender brings a lot of extra income with it so Dr Buss will probably make back most of his investment. Of the guys on the current roster I think we will move either Luke or Rad this summer because they fill the same role. As for Lamar, if the results are good with the jumbo front line he will stay, if they are not so great he will be moved. A 14 mil expiring contract that can contribute is very valuable in the league. I really can not see Ronny, Sasha and Trevor costing more then a total of 12 to 15 mil. Andrews extention will not kick in until Lamars deal is done so next year, while pricey will not be financially impossible either.

And another thought. Maybe Kobe should demonstrate his commitment to winning by opting out and resigning for less money. Thats what Duncan did, why not Kobe to?

MH

The Curious,

It is better to dream rather not dream at all.

What is good about the blog is everyone expresses their opinion, eventhough it is stupid and empty based on your standard, it is still an opinion. Some people get scared to blog and prefer to stay on the fence because they are afraid that people like you will chastise them on whatever they will say that does not fit to that liking. What is your liking? Nobody knows, unless you express it, we will never know. Some people talk too much and hug the blog as if their thinking should be the basis of all trades that is the cause of irritation of ordinary reader. Well, if u join us more often then you'd learn to tolerate and point out those human frailties and abuses.

Well, we criticized the F/O during all summer when they got into this "insider" side drama with Kobe. We tolerated the underachieving players for the last three years and called them scrubs, but at least we were part of the battlefield taking the hit and the blame for our love of the team. Yes, we were rude and unkind for the sake of improvement. Don't you also give credit to bloggers who made those criticisms, perhaps we woke up the Rip Van Winkles at the front office? You never know what a protest can do. It could breakdown Communism, it could break down racism but it all started with small protests. If those bloggers remained meek and mild, who could have known that there was a problem to solve?

Michael H.,

Who are the Laker players of the future?

Fisher/Farmar/Coby
Kobe/Sasha
Ariza/Turiaf
LO/Vlad/Luke
Bynum/Gasol/Mihm

Sun Lue can be inserted on 2. Who are the people on the trading blocks? '08 salaries Lamar ($14.5M) last year; Luke $4.4M) 5 more years to go; Vladrad ($6.0M) 3 more years to go; Mihm ($2.5M) last year.

Here is the situation, we do not have a 1st round draft pick next year, so those four players can be a good bait for a low draft pick player that may replace Fisher in 3 years time. As I said in previous posts, if we can get Euros similar to Calderon or Barnani then changing Vlad or Luke would not be wasted. However, if we will get a player who is old, slow and expensive, then let's just continue with what we have. Trade for an upward improvement like the Ariza and/or Gasol trade not the way we traded to acquire Kwame type or Shaq type of trade, it took us three years to dispose them.

Tsphere,

Just read your comment to Mike T, beautifully said. great tone too.

I'm a big Mike T. fan, no doubt.

Can someone confirm the following: It appears that Gasol, Bynum, and Odom are all players we picked up as a direct result of the Shaq trade. Odom we got directly, Bynum was the first round pick we got in the trade, and now Gasol for Kwame who we got for Butler. If this is so: hats off to Laker management! While Shaq enters those years he was demanding from Buss- and is clearly a shell of the player he once was- Mitch has positioned us to be serious contenders. All you Kobe hater / Shaq lovers - who do you want now? An old washed up Shaq or Gasol, Bynum and Odom?