After their free-agent spending spree, the Lakers are effectively out of spending power.
They’re currently projected to be only $1.9 million below the cap before re-signing Austin Reaves, signing Collin Sexton with the room mid-level exception and signing Kevon Looney to a veteran-minimum deal. That’s not even enough for a minimum contract.
That hasn’t stopped the Lakers from pursuing Jonathan Kuminga in free agency, according to Anthony Slater of ESPN.
Slater reported that the Lakers have been “subtly
improving their offer in recent days while reiterating to Kuminga his importance to what the Lakers are building around [Luka] Dončić, a likely starting role and what the opportunity could do for his career.” However, Kuminga and his agent believe “there are still avenues to better deals as the offseason dominoes continue to fall.
Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times later reported that the Lakers have offered Kuminga a two-year, $20 million deal. That allows us to connect some dots.
How the Lakers can create more cap space
The Lakers’ easiest path to creating more cap space would be salary-dumping Jarred Vanderbilt or waiving him and stretching the dead cap hit from his remaining contract over the next half-decade.
If the Lakers managed to dump Vanderbilt’s $12.4 million contract into another team’s cap space or a salary-cap exception, they’d have plenty of spending power to offer Kuminga a $10 million annual salary.
A waive-and-stretch would get them in that ballpark as well.
Vanderbilt has a $13.3 million player option next year, so the Lakers would have to stretch the remaining $25.7 million on his contract on their books evenly over the next five years. That comes out to a dead cap hit of roughly $5.1 million, giving the Lakers another $7.3 million in spending power this offseason.
Combine that with the $1.9 million that they currently project to have, and they’d be up to nearly $9.2 million in cap space. That would allow them to offer Kuminga a two-year, $18.8 million deal.
The Lakers could create even more cap space by dumping Dalton Knecht for a minimum contract, or moving the recently acquired Jaden Hardy for someone earning less. If they need to manufacture a bit more cap space for Kuminga or another free agent, President of Basketball Operation Rob Pelinka has outs.
The question is how he can sweeten any offer.
The Lakers have already traded away all of their first-round draft capital through 2033 aside from a 2032 pick swap and all of but one of their own second-rounders. They did acquire two second-rounders from the Washington Wizards (2031 and 2032) in the Deandre Ayton trade, but those three picks are the only tradable picks that they have in either round.
Perhaps a team would be willing to take a free flier on Knecht, whom the Lakers selected with the 17th overall pick two years ago. He hit 37.6% of his three-point attempts as a rookie, but his shooting percentage plunged last year, and his playing time went right along with it.
There’s always a chance that the Lakers have slightly more cap space than estimated, too. They haven’t made any of their signings official yet, and contract reports tend to round up generously in favor of agents at this time of year.
But after sign-and-trading for Walker Kessler and signing Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Collin Sexton, the Lakers are more or less out of cap space and exceptions. With only one open roster spot left, the Lakers will need to create more spending power to entice Kuminga or another free-agent target.
The Lakers’ lack of tradable draft picks could impact their ability to outright salary-dump Vanderbilt. They’d have to determine whether signing Kuminga would justify giving up the 2032 first-round swap rights or any of their tradable second-round picks. If not, a waive-and-stretch would be their most likely path forward.
Either way, the Lakers do have a feasible path to offering Kuminga or another free agent somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million per season. Anything beyond that would likely require moving one or both of Hardy and Knecht. And anything north of $20 million is a pipe dream.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.
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