Luka Dealt to Lakers: Nico Harrison is a Basketball Terrorist

[michaeltex]

He was getting the same salary as the others. He was NOT opting to be the 3rd banana when it comes to salary. 

Unlike in MIA, they can't get that close to the max for each of the 3. 

In essence you could have about 140M to split 3 ways, but that means Luka takes a 5M pay cut, Lebron signs for about 75% of his max, and so does an outside free agent. It's not close to everyone getting what they would consider full pay. I just don't buy it.

I don't know how the money works out for LALs, but I'm wondering how the LBJ-Luka relationship is going to develop. No matter where he has been, LBJ always makes sure he is viewed as Player #1. Obviously the original CLE team was all about LBJ, but 4 years in MIA still had LBJ with DWade and Bosh as (well paid) sidekicks, never mind the drama around the "Decision". Returning to CLE, which was building around Kyrie, it became all about LBJ bringing a title to his "home" team. Enough so that Kyrie wanted OUT. Moving to LAL changed nothing, no matter the quality of players who joined the squad.

Looking at box scores and highlights of the last few LAL games, it's like LBJ is determined to out-Luka Luka. Scoring more, and more efficiently, similar rebounds, similar assists, etc. seems to me an effort by LBJ to show he's still "the man" and remove the media spotlight from the pile of scheissen that was THE TRADE. It will be interesting to see if Luka is OK with being a (well paid) sidekick.