LeBron James joined Carmelo Anthony in the free-agent ranks Tuesday, officially opting out of his contract with the Miami Heat, and the whole world went bonkers.
And the Los Angeles Lakers started drooling.
We all know they have cap space. How could we forget? This has been years in the making. This is the summer the Lakers would stage the free-agency coups to trounce and destroy and end all other free-agency coups.
Then, slowly, surely, excitement dissipated, vanished into thin air under conventional wisdom and Kobe Bryant’s non-negotiated extension that had a what-the-hell-were-you-thinking-Lakers feel to it. Suddenly it was all about 2015 and Kevin Love and whomever else would become available. The dream of luring LeBron or Melo to Los Angeles was on life support, if not dead.
Until now.
In the wake of LeBron and Melo entering free agency, the Lakers’ pipe dreams have been given new life. Consider what the Los Angeles Daily News’ Mark Medina says here:
Lakers will try to set up a meeting with both LeBron & Carmelo once free agency hits. Interest is substantially higher on LeBron
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) June 24, 2014
Cool. And ambiguous.
Do they want to meet with them at the same time? No, that can’t be right.
Could it?
Apparently it could.
According to ESPN.com’s Marc Stein and Ramona Shelburne, the Lakers are among the many teams positioning themselves to make a run at both LeBron and Melo:
Carmelo Anthony has yet to publicly reveal the process by which he plans to entertain other teams in free agency now that he has opted out of his contract with the New York Knicks, but the Chicago Bulls, Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers are among the teams that expect to have the opportunity to make their pitch to him starting July 1, according to sources close to the situation.
…
The Lakers are in the advantageous position of having enough room under the salary cap to make a maximum offer to Anthony without having to clear any salary, but it is believed Anthony would want them to strengthen their roster before he would seriously consider a move to L.A. Sources say the Lakers, to that end, have been exploring their options with the No. 7 pick in Thursday’s draft and have told teams they are prepared to package the pick with the expiring contract of Steve Nash (owed $9.7 million next season) for the right offer.
Okay, let’s get a few things straight.
First and foremost, signing both is possible. Yes, possible. Taking whomever they draft seventh overall—since they can’t trade the pick itself—and using him as a buffer to dump Steve Nash opens up $32-plus million in cap space after factoring in the returns of Bryant, Robert Sacre, Kendall Marshall, Kent Bazemore and Ryan Kelly, and the required number of minimum cap holds.
That leaves the Lakers with somewhere around $16 million—maybe more—to offer Melo and LeBron in the first year of their deals. Looking at what other teams can do that’s not bad.
But it’s not going to happen.
LeBron and Melo aren’t going to join the Lakers and an aging Kobe, who, by the way, would be earning $7-plus million more than them in 2014-15. I repeat: It’s not going to happen. It’s ridiculous to expect either Melo or LeBron to take $16 million, but it’s out-of-this-world absurd to think they would accept the pay cut Bryant never offered to take.
Feel free to dream on, hopeful Lakers fans. I totally get it. And it’s cool.
Please, though, get excited about summer 2015 too. Or at least try to. That’s when your Lakers are more likely to do some free-agency damage.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com.
