Are the Bulls the Key to the Lakers’ Dreams?

The NBA offseason might be my favorite sport.  News broke earlier today that Kawhi Leonard wants a trade, and his top desire is to become a Laker.  The news immediately broke Twitter, and every fan in L.A., Boston, and Philadelphia is now clicking away on trade machines.

Considering how shady ESPN can be at times, it probably isn’t a coincidence that earlier this morning Kevin Pelton published an article on how the Lakers can pull off assembling a big three of LeBron James, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard this summer.

Basically, because LeBron, George, and Kawhi would account for $85 million next season in salaries, Pelton posited that the Lakers needed to trade for Leonard first, and then sign LeBron and George with the cap space they would have remaining.

To me, the biggest road block of such a scenario is that Pelton states Loul Deng would have to be in the Kawhi Leonard trade, a move that could cost the Lakers Kyle Kuzma.  I don’t see any reason on God’s green earth why the Spurs would be willing to trade away Kawhi and take back Deng’s contract.  Even if Kawhi refuses to commit to an extension with any team besides the Lakers prior to a trade agreement, isn’t it more likely the Spurs ship Leonard to team offering a package that doesn’t feature $36 million in dead money, even though the package headliner won’t be as good as, say, Brandon Ingram?

[A quick aside: Pelton uses Lonzo as the focal point for the Kawhi trade, basically because Lonzo has a higher salary and the Lakers need all the cap space they can get.  I speculate, however, that the Spurs would have more interest in Ingram as a Kawhi replacement on the wing instead of a second long, plus-defense point guard that is a questionable shooter.]

But the Lakers need some salary filler to get this trade done.  The Lakers could package both Ingram and Lonzo, but I don’t foresee the Lakers giving up both to get Kawhi.  Maybe they wouldn’t even hesitate, but I think the Spurs would only get one or the other.

Ok, so what can the Lakers do about this?  Call Chicago.

The Spurs don’t want Deng’s contract, no one does, (the Hawks should be willing to eat it but the Lakers most likely aren’t willing to pay what it would cost for them to do that) so Los Angeles needs salary filler the Spurs won’t mind swallowing.  Enter Omer Asik.

Asik is making $11,286,516 million this upcoming season and has two years left on his deal.  However, only $3 million of the $11,977,527 million in 2019-2020 is guaranteed.  Thus, Asik only has a total of $14,286,516 million guaranteed left on his contract.

But the fact the money is spread out over two years instead of one is extremely beneficial.  The way the stretch provision rules are written, when you stretch a player you stretch the remaining salary over two times the remaining years plus one year.  So, instead of eating $36.81 million over the course of the next two seasons by taking the Deng contract, the Spurs could stretch Asik and be on the hook for $2,857,303 million over the course of the next five seasons.  That seems much more palatable.

In fact, the Spurs could even go the Atlanta Hawks/Jamal Crawford route and agree to a buyout for less than the $14,286,516 million and then stretch that number over five years, lowering the annual cap hits.

Of course, we skipped a step.  The Lakers have to get the Bulls to agree to take on Deng’s contract in exchange for Asik’s contract.  The Bulls would be taking on $22.53 million of dead money, roughly the difference between the two contracts.  There isn’t much of a market calibration for what the price of dead money costs in draft capital.  There isn’t really a clear pattern.

Jamal Crawford, once again, provides us with a good example however.  The Hawks took on $17.2 million in guaranteed money and got Houston’s top-three protected 2018 pick, which became the 30th pick.  You could argue, correctly, that Crawford isn’t just dead money like Deng, but we saw $17.2 million in guaranteed dollars traded for the 30th pick.

The Lakers are equipped with the 25th and 47th picks in the 2018 draft.  I think this should be enough to get the deal done.  The Bulls are without a second rounder in 2018, so the 47th pick would be an easy way to add a very cheap contract to the roster.  The 25th pick gives them another option for acquiring cheap, team controlled talent, but it could be more useful to Chicago in a trade.

The Bulls already have the 7th and 22nd picks in this year’s draft.  If there is someone the Bulls are itching to get their hands in the draft, the 22nd and 25th picks would serve as decent ammunition to move up a spot or two to secure their guy, if they believe Dallas or Orlando is interested in the same player.

Coming full circle, let’s get back to why we all came here in the first place, Kawhi getting traded to the Lakers.  So what would the trade actually be?

Let’s start with looking at what the Lakers roster would be.  If they get the Deng for Asik swap done, and waive the non-guaranteed contract of Tyler Ennis, (and of course renounce all of their cap holds) the Lakers are left with Omer Asik ($11,286,516), Lonzo Ball ($7,461,960), Brandon Ingram ($5,757120), Kyle Kuzma (1,689,840), Josh Hart (1,655,160), Ivica Zubac ($1,544,951), and Thomas Bryant ($1,378,252) for a total payroll of $30,773,789.

As mentioned above, Kevin Pelton theorized that since the Spurs were going to have to take on Deng’s contract the Lakers would need to add in more value in the form of Kyle Kuzma.  With a much more appealing salary filling option in Asik, the Lakers may be able to get away with not including Kuzma.  Assuming this trade happens after the draft, allowing the Lakers to trade their 2019 first round pick, I think the trade package of Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, Omer Asik, and the Lakers 2019 first round pick would be what the two sides come to terms upon.  The Spurs may demand Kuzma and the Lakers may cave, but that’s how I see it playing out.

Swapping out the salaries of Asik, Ingram, and Hart for Leonard would add $1,400,392 to the Lakers payroll, leaving Los Angeles with salaries of $32,174,181, equating in $68,825,819 of cap space.  LeBron’s max plus Paul George’s max equals $65.7 million, so the Lakers would have $3.1 million of cap space in addition to the $4.4 million room mid-level exception and veteran minimum contracts to fill out the roster.

To package neatly, if the Lakers get the Bulls to swap Osik for Deng, the Lakers then have salary filler for a Kawhi trade that the Spurs would be much more willing to take back.  Such a move may also save them from having to surrender Kyle Kuzma in a Kawhi trade.  You may argue that Josh Hart, who would be a 3 and D bench guy on the new look Lakers, would be a better fit than Kuzma anyway, and that has some merit, but Kuzma is clearly the superior player so Los Angeles may prefer to hold onto him.

The Bulls would have plenty of draft capital to load up on young guys or move up in the draft.  The Spurs get a package built around Brandon Ingram, an offer that could probably only be topped by Boston, a team who may be reluctant to part with much if Kawhi won’t commit to an extension.  San Antonio would also avoid taking on an albatross contract, so basically everyone is a winner.

filed under: NBA

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