OPENING TIP
It has become something of a media pastime this NBA season to crap all over the Los Angeles Lakers. That is because it's great fun. For instance, did you know that with the Lakers current salaries, taxes, and a record of 29-38, the Lakers are currently paying $7 million dollars per win (the Suns, by contrast, are paying less than $3 million)? Did you know that "AD" actually stands for Anthony Day-to-Davis? Did…
Sorry. Got distracted. The Lakers are bad though, as demonstrated most recently by an inexplicable loss to the Rockets. And it occurred to us that with all the piling on, very few people are actually weighing in on what might be done to fix the Lake Show. So we set ourselves the challenge of figuring out what the Lakers do next. And the answer is obvious.
Ha. That's just a little joke. In reality, time travel is against the CBA. So we'll have to do this the old fashioned way. We will begin, like Westley the Dread Pirate Roberts, by Summarizing Our Assets.
Lebron. Even at 38, he's an amazing playmaker and fits any team perfectly.
AD. Still an elite defender. Must play more basketball.
Malik Monk. It got bleak fast! But he's been a real asset, and we'd bet on him sticking around one more year to get Bird Rights with the Lakers, given the dearth of cap space elsewhere.
2027 and 2029 first rounders…
The Laker Brand. Everyone wants to play here, and they are known to treat superstars well. Don’t sleep on this.
A giant expiring contract (well, a 6'3" expiring contract). Oh how the mighty have fallen!
Those are... some assets. And so the first thing we must do is decide which path we as a franchise are going to take: compete now, or punt?
THE CASE TO PUNT
It seems increasingly clear that AD as your best player isn't winning a title. He wasn't dragging bad Pelicans teams into the playoffs, much less further, and, at 29, his production is headed in the wrong direction.
LeBron is still great, but he's old, and injuries will continue to take a toll. He can't drag this team to a .500 record (much less the Finals, as he used to do with pitiful Cavs teams) in a weakened West.
Trading LeBron and AD could return a fortune in assets to begin a rebuild. And while many of the Lakers’ future picks are gone, their situation isn't as bleak as other teams (the Nets and Clippers come to mind) that have traded not just every pick but swaps as well.
THE CASE TO GO FOR IT
A quick rebuild seems out of the question. Does the Buss family have the stomach for a 5+ year rebuild, coming just a few years after a 6+ year rebuild?
They don't have their pick this year, so in some sense the die is already cast for 2022-23.
Avoid too much recency bias. This Frankenstein's monster of a team never had a chance. Old LeBron is still a very good player. A backbone of any team with AD + LeBron has a very good chance. The bubble was only 18 months ago.
Blowing up a team with King James and AD still feels like a bridge too far. The Lakers need to go for it. But given how bare the cupboard is, they should only be willing to trade picks for a player who will help them for years to come—not just to dump Russ’ contract.
THE CAP PICTURE
It’s not great. The Lakers are approximately $16M into the tax next year per Spotrac, assuming Kendrick Nunn picks up his player option and the roster is again filled with veteran minimum players.
The obvious place to start is Russ. Russ has a player option that we suspect will get picked up. The problem is that he isn’t good and he makes $47 million.
There have been whispers of an attempt to get Russ to opt out, and then re-sign him to a lower number for multiple years, but some flexibility to sign more guys to play around LBJ and Russ is really, really not the answer. And we suspect any number Russ is willing to take for a multi-year extension is just going to prolong the agony.
You could also run it back by pinning the blame on Frank Vogel, and then try to sell the world on the same train wreck, but coached by Kenny Atkinson or Sam Cassell. But we're here to fix the Lakers, not just do what Rob Pelinka will do.
So what do we do with Russ: Cut him, stretch him, or trade him?
Waiving him makes no sense even if the Lakers decide to punt. At the very least there’s a chance his expiring contract has value for a team looking to clear ‘23 cap space. And it doesn’t make you better this year. So that’s off the table.
Stretching his contract would spread the $47M hit out over three years, which would leave the Lakers right at the tax line. If they dump Talen Horton Tucker and are careful on their minimums, they could get under the tax enough to use a non taxpayer MLE. But it’s hard to see who they’re signing to the mid-level that is going to make the roster competitive with the best teams (does Donte DiVincenzo move the needle?). And this leaves a $16M hole in their cap sheet the next two seasons. So the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Trading him is going to be tough. And to get anything back, they’ll have to attach assets. But it’s the only option.
TRADING RUSS
So what are we getting for Russ? We tried to get creative about options, but it’s tough to find a match that works for both teams. But let’s try!
Rockets. John Wall. But this is pointless. So we’re ruling it out.
Philly. The long-awaited Russ/Harden reunion! This would only make sense if the Sixers were desperate to dump Tobias Harris, but we can’t see that happening.
Knicks. Julius Randle Strikes Back? We don’t see it. While the cap math of Randle + Fournier works, Randle isn’t a good fit on the Lakers and Russ isn’t a good fit anywhere. The Knicks might jump at the chance to offload Kemba, but trading Russ to get even older and more injury prone doesn't feel exciting.
OKC. Russ plus picks for SGA? We think Presti can do a lot better.
Portland. We’re sure the Lakers would love to be in the Dame business, but the 27/29 picks plus swaps are not enough to get him.
Detroit. Hmmm. Jerami Grant fits perfectly on the Lakers and would get a big-time role just because of the lack of other mouths to feed. Detroit is probably not going to compete next year, so an expiring plus more assets fits their timeline. Because of Russ’s salary, Kelly Olynyk also needs to be in the deal, but the Lakers could actually use him. They need to get to $38M in salary. Grant, Olynyk, and Killian Hayes is $39.6 million. The Lakers would need to include both picks and likely completely unprotect them. Lakers get a real player, Detroit stays bad and picks up some potentially excellent picks. If they want to go for it, this is basically the Lakers’ only choice.
FILLING IN THE GAPS
Once we've done the impossible lift, it's time to fill in around the edges. The “we aren't hard capped by the Grant trade, so we can use the Taxpayer Mid-Level” part. In brief:
Retain Austin Reaves, Malik Monk, THT and Kendrick Nunn. Only Monk is at risk of leaving, but we bet he wants to stay to retain his Bird rights.
Sign a veteran PG (or two). Ricky Rubio and Gary Payton II would both upgrade the Laker defense and may be gettable with the taxpayer MLE. While neither can shoot, that didn’t stop Caruso from helping them win a title.
Roll the dice on some minimum-contract vets. For as much shit as Pelinka (deservedly) got this year, Monk and Carmelo have solidly outplayed their deals. And Dwight is fine.
That leaves us with an eight man playoff rotation of:
With room to add a backup PF and C (Carmelo and Dwight?) on the minimum market.
Does it get us a title? Okay, so it’s not a slam dunk, but this team feels better than the LeBron and AD plus KCP/Alex Caruso bunch that dominated the Magic Kingdom. And there you have it. Lakers fans can all breathe a deep sigh of relief. We're sure Rob Pelinka can get this done.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
Myles Turner on how he hones his fine motor skills.
BETTER KNOW A RICH PERSON: JOSH HARRIS
Welcome back to everyone’s favorite series, profiling what many have called “the greatest competitive advantage in sports”: owners. Recently, James Harden was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers. You may have heard. Since, if NBA social media is to be believed, the play of Harden and Joel Embiid has pretty much wrapped up the title, we thought it might be worth visiting the environs of the City of Brotherly Love to meet Sixers co-owner Josh Harris.
Unlike our previous profile on Rockets owner Tillman Fertitta, Harris does not have a book, TV show, or website promoting himself. In fact, even when in the midst of trying to buy the Sixers, Harris refused through a spokesperson to do an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. So it feels safe to say that he is not necessarily in the NBA ownership game for the publicity and glam. Why would he own the team? We can only speculate, but a clue might be found in one profile of the man, in which “a close confidant” described Harris as, "The most competitive human being that I know."
WHO: Joshua Harris, owner of the Philadelphia 76ers. 57 years old.
ABSURDLY RICH, HILARIOUSLY RICH, OR OBSCENELY RICH? Hilariously. Harris' net worth is said to be about $6 billion, which puts him just below the very, very top echelon of NBA owners. (We would like to pause briefly to point out that this distinction is often not a super meaningful one. Humans have difficulty conceptualizing large abstract concepts like ‘billion’. Consider: one million seconds elapse in 12 days. One billion seconds takes 31 years. Josh is doing fine.)
HOW DID HE GET THAT WAY? Harris was born to a Jewish family in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He went to the Wharton School of Business, then received his MBA from Harvard. From there it was mergers and acquisitions at Drexel Burnham Lambert, before co-founding Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm, in 1990. We admit it's not riveting stuff, and Harris' reluctance to speak publicly keeps it pretty dry, but fear not! Things have gotten livelier of late, as a power struggle over control of Apollo has grown to include Jeffrey Epstein, Russian model Guzel Ganieva, and the following quote from Apollo co-Founder Leon Black's lawsuit:
Like Shakespeare’s Iago, enraged by being passed over for promotion, he turned his wrath on his mentor and leader. Harris convened a veritable war cabinet of advisers to take on the founder, the report, and Apollo itself—his very own company.
Good times!
IS HE LIQUID? Sufficiently. Even with much of his wealth tied up in Apollo funds, there is a robust market in which he could sell or borrow against his holdings if the Sixers needed to dip deep into the tax. Harris also owns the New Jersey Devils and a stake in the Premier Leagues Crystal Palace F.C., and has confirmed rumors he is considering an offer for the Denver Broncos.
WHEN DID HE MAKE THE LEAGUE? 2011. Harris has spent his entire life identifying undervalued assets, so when Comcast put the Sixers up for sale at $287 million, he pounced. It seemed like great value at the time, and since, well...
HOW'S THE B-BALL GOING? Now that's just a very difficult question to answer. Ask basketball observers, and you will get answers that range between “quite well” and “perhaps the worst thing that has happened to professional basketball”.
Harris has employed two extremely suspect decision makers, in Brian Colangelo and Elton Brand, one very good one, in Daryl Morey, and also the antichrist (Sam Hinkie). He has presided over what was likely the most atrocious basketball ever committed during the Hinkie regime. He is also the owner of a team featuring Joel Embiid and James Harden, who are going to win a LOT of games over the next few years. The Sixers are many things to many people, but during Harris' ownership the team has probably led the league in non-boringness.
HOW SHOULD SIXERS FANS FEEL? Good. Granted, it's been a mixed bag of late. But according to the lawsuit we mentioned above, Harris has been plotting the overthrow of his Apollo Global mentor Leon Black by hiring a PR agent to seed stories about Black’s involvement with Jeffery Epstein, as well as secretly funding a lawsuit from Black's mistress who was also trying to extort him.
Black is now gone, but Harris was passed over to run Apollo, and has since resigned and is starting his own fund. In short, he's had a certain amount on his plate, but has during that time continued to be incredibly aggressive (some would say too aggressive) in trying to turn Philadelphia into a basketball powerhouse. He has spent years paying the luxury tax, and the future looks rosy in Philly, at least as long as they can keep James Harden's diet under control.
AT THE BUZZER
NBA draft revisionism for the FOMO set (The Pudding)
Hollinger on the DeMar DirkRozanssance (Athletic, $)
A deep dive on NBA team introductions (538)
Sports Illustrated rates the top NBA draft prospects going into March Madness (SI)