With Kobe Bryant‘s farewell tour complete, the Lakers are set to clear his massive cap hit from their books, freeing up a significant amount of cap room and creating major flexibility for the coming offseason. Of course, it’s not just Bryant’s monster cap number that will be expunged — assuming the team doesn’t intend to bring back Roy Hibbert, his $15MM+ salary (and $23MM cap hold) can be cleared as well. With only about $23MM in guaranteed money owed to players for 2016/17, the Lakers will have the freedom to splash around in free agency this summer, either adding veterans to a young core that includes D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and this year’s No. 2 overall pick, or using some of those attractive, affordable pieces to try to acquire pricier stars.
See how Los Angeles’ cap situation looks for 2016/17 as Hoops Rumors continues its offseason salary cap digest series.
Guaranteed Salary
- Lou Williams ($7,000,000)
- Nick Young ($5,443,918)
- D’Angelo Russell ($5,332,800)
- Julius Randle ($3,267,120)
- Larry Nance Jr. ($1,207,680)
- Anthony Brown ($874,636)
- Total: $23,126,154
Player Options
- Brandon Bass ($3,135,000)
Team Options
- None
Non-Guaranteed Salary
- None
Restricted Free Agents (Qualifying Offers/Cap Holds)
- Jordan Clarkson ($2,725,003/$2,725,003)
- Ryan Kelly ($2,155,313/$3,276,075)
- Tarik Black ($1,180,431/$1,180,431)
- Marcelo Huertas ($1,074,636/$1,074,636)
- Totals: $7,135,383/$8,256,145
Unrestricted Free Agents (Cap Holds)
- Kobe Bryant ($30,300,000)1
- Roy Hibbert ($23,388,324)
- Robert Sacre ($980,431)
- Metta World Peace ($980,431)
- Total: $55,649,186
Other Cap Holds
- No. 2 pick ($4,401,400)
Projected Salary Cap: $92,000,000
Footnotes:
- The cap hold for Bryant will be the maximum salary for a veteran of 10 or more seasons. The number shown here is an estimate based on the projected cap figure.
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Bring back T.Black, Clarkson, MWP and Bass. The rest of the free agents can go
So Sacre, Kelly and Huertas basically
Huertas might not be a bad choice to bring back. I didn’t watch him play so I can’t say he definetly hurt or helped the team but his numbers aren’t bad for a 3rd point guard. Maybe on a low guarantee deal (like signing bonus but everything else is unguaranteed)? Would take some pressure off of having to find a true backup point guard right away. Resigning Huertas could allow the Lakers to not overspend on a backup and worst case, if they find a backup then you cut Huertas.
Tarik Black and JordanC : yes.
Bring these two back.
If we can get Huertas to agree to a team friendly contract, then yes to him as well
Clarkson must be re-signed. Black and Huertas can be had for friendly contracts.
Then spend the rest of the moolah for relevant FAs if they can sign any. I have this strong feeling they’re gonna strike out again on the top tier FAs. Hopefully… the Lakers can somehow get Kent Bazemore, Courtney Lee to bolster perimeter defense. And a big like Noah to provide leadership.
I see the draft picks as the sure way of upgrading the roster if they pick Ingram and another mobile big with the #32 pick.
I hope the Lakers can move on from Kobe. We have a lot of young talent.