23 that the Lakers acquired Jordan Bell and Alfonso McKinney in a deal with McGee. Both
earn $1.8 million next season, but there is no guarantee. The Lakers can choose to keep them or lay them off.
The purpose of the Lakers' deal with McGee is to free up more space to sign Gasol. There is currently news that the Lakers have signed Gasol for two years, but it is not clear how much Gasol's contract is.
But what is certain is that Gasol won’t make much money. It may only be a veteran’s basic salary. The Lakers only have 4 million salary space after signing with Popper for 3 years and 41 million. Their purpose of trading McGee is to get more. More salary space.
If the Lakers execute the contract between Jordan Bell and McKinney, it would be equivalent to paying 3.6 million in salary, so the Lakers' salary space is 4.66 million, which is not enough to sign Gasol and other players.
So the Lakers will definitely not execute the contract between Jordan Bell and McKinney, so the Lakers' salary space will reach 8.26 million.
However, there are only 8.26 million people, and 6 players including Gasol have to renew their contracts. The money is still not enough.
Now the Lakers only have two ways to solve the problem of tight salary space. The Lakers can get 3.56 million special cases by trading Kuzma, so that there can be more room, but the Lakers may not be too willing to change Kuzma. If in the end there is really no way, the Lakers can use Kuzma for a special deal, so that the Lakers' salary space is 11.82 million, but they have to sign 7 players.
The second is to persuade Davis to make a salary. If Davis gets the maximum salary regardless of his contract for several years, the starting salary is 32.74 million. The Lakers can persuade Davis to make the salary appropriately, as long as it can free up 2 million. The team is a huge help. But if Davis really lets his pay, his contract may be just a short contract. If Davis takes a starting salary of 30 million and signs a five-year contract with the team, he may lose 15 million or more.
In this way, the Lakers can get Davis to sign a two-year contract and jump out of the contract in 2021 and continue to sign a maximum salary, just like Durant and the Warriors signed a two-year 54.3 million contract in 2016 with player options. In this contract, Durant gave the Warriors a salary of more than 3 million.
In 2017, Durant jumped out of the contract with the Warriors to continue to sign a two-year 53 million contract. The annual salary of this contract is smaller than the previous contract. He once again made a salary for the Warriors.
Durant has been with the Warriors for 3 years and signed a 1+1 contract every year. In these three years, he has paid a total of 10 million for the Warriors. The Warriors' salary pressure has been very tight. In 2018, they renewed Iguodala and Livingston at the same time. If Durant hadn't let the Warriors, they would not renew Livingston.
If Davis signs a 1+1 contract with the Lakers like Durant, he will give the Lakers a salary of 2 to 3 million this year, which can resolve the Lakers' salary pressure to a certain extent. Now it depends on Davis' consciousness. . The problem with the Lakers is that they have triggered a hard salary cap. Even if they want to spend money on the team’s total salary, they can’t exceed 139 million. Therefore, the Lakers can only subtract from existing players and trade players who are currently contracted with the team to reduce their wages. Expenses, and the Lakers can only trade Kuzma and Caruso among the existing players, so under salary pressure, the Lakers are likely to trade Kuzma to get 3.56 million salary space.
