Dare to dream.
Free agency is just about over and done with, and the NBA regular season is less than two months away. You, therefore, know what that means: It’s time for the Los Angeles Lakers to register purported interest in some of next year’s biggest free agents.
It happened when Dwight Howard was still a realistic target. It happened last year when the Lakers were expected to make plays for Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James. It will happen next September, entering the 2015-16 season, when Kevin Durant is less than a year away from reaching free agency. And, according to ESPN.com’s Marc Stein, it’s happening now, 10 months before Eric Bledsoe and Goran Dragic have the opportunity to explore the open market:
The Lakers, for example, are just one team league sources say would likely make a hard run at both of them, based on the premise that the Suns couldn’t afford the cost of paying both at that point, theoretically making either Bledsoe or Dragic gettable. Sources say that Houston, furthermore, has Dragic on its list of potential targets next summer given how he’s blossomed since leaving the Rockets for Phoenix in the free-agent summer of 2012.
First and foremost, let’s all congratulate the Houston Rockets for winning the Most Likely to Pursue Former Players award. They did it with Kyle Lowry this past summer, and now they’re apparently eyeing Dragic next year. Good stuff.
For the Lakers, their future interest is obvious. They don’t have their point guard of the future right now. Neither Jeremy Lin nor Steve Nash are long-term solutions. Signing or trading for Dragic or Bledsoe would give them a significant upgrade.
Only trading for them is basically out of the question. Even if the Phoenix Suns were willing to deal, the Lakers don’t have the assets to broker a legitimate trade. Free agency is their best bet, and even that’s a long shot.
Dragic has control of his own future. He can, and likely will, reach unrestricted free agency next summer. Bledsoe’s situation is more complicated. For him to become an unrestricted free agent in 2015, he must first sign Phoenix’s qualifying offer, ignoring the semi-lucrative four-year contract they have on the table. If he does that, he’s free to wander about the free-agent market as he pleases next summer, without worrying about whether the Suns will match any offer he receives.
That’s been the spiel all along. And though with each passing day it appears more and more likely that Bledsoe will follow Greg Monroe’s lead, he actually must follow it, lest reports like these mean nothing.
Leaving that kind of money on the table is difficult. The Suns may be lowballing Bledsoe in the eyes of some—most notably Bledsoe himself—but they’re dangling financial security. Mini LeBron would be set for life after signing this deal. Is he willing to risk it all for the possibility of landing a bigger pact in one year’s time?
Until Bledsoe puts pen to paper on his qualifying offer or his four-year contract from Phoenix, we don’t know. We just have to wait. And so, too, do the Lakers, who remain in the business of plotting pursuits for players they may never have the opportunity to chase.
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.
