The Lakers are bottoming out in order to increase their odds as much as possible for the NBA Draft Lottery. All first round draft picks are assigned a salary that is scaled based on the order of the draft. The higher the draft pick, the higher the projected salary or cap hold for that selection. The Lakers have been creating and maintaining as much cap space as possible in their pursuit of stars.
Although having a bad record in order to have a higher draft pick is a pragmatic long term decision, the cap hold of the actual cap hit could significantly interfere with the Lakers cap space depending how high the pick is.
It is important to note that every rookie scale salary and projection discussed is subject to change as we get closer to June 30th, although the exact numbers aren’t expected to change drastically. With that said, this article provides a reliable projection of the Lakers potential cap space based on their draft selection.
The Lakers currently have the 10th worse record in the NBA. The cap hold of the 10th overall pick is 120% of the rookie scale amount, slotting it with a $4.24M hold. This means that if they get the 10th overall pick, which is statistically likely to happen, $4.24M would be deducted from their projected cap space.
For the 10th overall pick, this isn’t significant for the Lakers as they still are projected to be able to generate up to $35.36M in cap space, more than the currently projected $32.7M to sign a free agent with 7-9 years of service to a maximum deal. The Lakers could still offer a maximum to several free agents such as Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, and Jimmy Butler.
While tanking gets exciting it also starts to interfere with the Lakers cap space if they actually jump up in the lottery standings for a top 4 pick. In the past, it was rare for a team outside the top 6 of the draft order to jump into the lottery for a top 3 pick. This year, the odds have been divided much more evenly among all playoff teams, making it a lot more statistically possible for teams in the middle of the lottery to leapfrog to the top. Not only that, but the NBA will now start drawing selections for the top four picks of the draft instead of just the top three. The additional selection in the lottery gives teams an additional opportunity to jump the lottery.
The Lakers currently have the 10th worst record and are only 3 games ahead of the Grizzlies for the 6th worst record. It isn’t unreasonable for the Lakers to achieve a record that low, which would give them a cap hold of $5.81M if they get the #6 pick. Again, the Lakers can still offer the projected $32.7M maximum to a free agent so they are still unaffected.
If the Lakers break into the top 4, the cap hit for their pick would be as low as $7.06M if they get the 4th selection and as high as $9.74M if they get the number one overall selection. In these cases, the cap hits decrease the Lakers potential cap space to under $32.7M. In the case the ping pong balls fall in the Lakers favor and they get the #1 overall pick, their potential cap space decreases to just under $30M. That is a $3-6M difference versus where they stand with the tenth overall pick.
As mentioned earlier, the reduction in cap space is so miniscule it probably won’t be considered a hindrance of any sort. If they need to, they could trade one or two of their lowest salaried players to create sufficient cap space for a max. And if no star player plans on signing with the Lakers anyways, then the Lakers pretty much already have all the cap space they need this summer.
