In the words of ESPN’s Lee Corso, not so fast, my friend.
While it had been widely assumed and reported in the days following the first reports of the Anthony Davis trade that the team would be unable to create max cap space, the Lakers front office is pursuing a work around to be able to add a third star alongside Davis and LeBron James.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Lakers are in talks with a potential third team who they could send players Moe Wagner, Isaac Bonga and Jemerrio Jones to. The reason for this would be to create upwards of $32 million in space, should a third team agree to take those players on.
Below is a simplified breakdown from the NBA Wire’s cap expert Yossi Gozlan.
This is a game-changer for the Lakers and gives them the ability to pursue another elite free agent, should another team accommodate them by absorbing their contracts.
Of course, this comes back to another important question: why would another team simply help the Lakers by taking these players on to create max space? However, all it takes is one team to be fans of Moe Wagner and Isaac Bonga, as well as some ‘fake 2nd round picks,’ to make it happen.
Due to the Davis trade, they also have no draft capital to give to other teams apart from going deeper and deeper into obligations. As of now, the Pelicans have pick swap rights for seven years so they don’t have a lot of available picks at their disposal to give to a potential third team.
It will be interesting to see whether that other trade partner materializes for the Lakers to potentially add a third elite player. However, they may just use that additional cap space to fill out a very empty roster with several players instead of one max level guy.
