Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[DanSchwartzgan]

Is it too soon to give up on Hardy or O-Max? The way we've played, I think another plus defender or a backup ball handler would be fantastic here. So far:

Luka/X
Irving/Hardaway
Green/Y
Williams/Z
Lively/Powell

We don't have the ammo IMO to land a young starter (like Anunoby), so I'd settle for quality backups that can shoot 3's.

I think you can call some combination of Curry/Exum as X.  If you look at the Game Flow for the last game, Exum came in for Luka when Luka sat (and Luka had to come right back when Exum got hurt).

Pretty clearly Jones Jr. is some combination of Y/Z and Maxi is getting a smattering of Z minutes here and there.  So, one question is what hole is the biggest need?

The other is obviously the means of acquiring someone.  Dallas is  $3.46mm under the tax, but Morris is mostly NG and his $2mm in cap cost is earned pro-rata (after about game 8) until it fully guarantees on 1/10.  So, the unearned part of Morris can be added to the amount we are under the cap.  If Morris plays 20 games (for instance), you can add about $1.5mm to the amount we are under the cap.

The reason this is important is we have MLE left (should someone be released that is worth that kind of money).  We also have TPE left.  The MLE amount is $5.4mm and the TPE amount is $4.9mm.  So both are within reach of being maximized if Morris is cut at a certain point in time.

Given our best contracts to trade are not expiring, it seems we are more likely to shop in this kind of $5mm pond than some big OG/Siakam deal.  Use of the MLE in-season is fairly rare, but it could happen if the right guy us cut our bought out.  We can also take in a lower dollar guy through the TPE in trade…probably to help some team get under the tax.