Even after the Los Angeles Lakers agreed to ship out a huge chunk of their roster in the proposed deal for Anthony Davis, the team still had a hurdle to get over if it wanted to sign a third star in free agency. Namely, they didn’t have enough cap space to offer max money.
Now, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, they’ve cleared that hurdle. And they did it by further emptying out an already bare cupboard, this time in a trade with the Washington Wizards:
One other factor at play here was Davis’s potential trade kicker — essentially a 15 percent raise on his current salary that he was contractually eligible for in the event of a trade. Davis has reportedly waived that trade kicker, keeping his 2019–20 salary the same and the Lakers’ overall payroll as low as possible:
The combination of the two moves leaves the Lakers with just three players under contract for next season — Davis, LeBron James and Kyle Kuzma — along with $5 million dollars in “dead money” on the books stemming from the release of Luol Deng.
According to rumours, the Lakers may end up using that cleared space on more than one player, but have interest in several available free agents, including Toronto Raptors free agent Kawhi Leonard, the Brooklyn Nets’ De’Angelo Russell and Charlotte Hornets’ Kemba Walker.
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