Lakers now have space to sign Kyrie to a max contract next summer?

[BigBallerBrand]

With only LeBron and AD on the books?
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Billions Billions Billions

[AD23]

Let’s see what happens. If Lakers trade for Buddy and Myles they won’t.

[JUST-MING]

According to Vasashi's stickied thread, they will have $34.7 million in cap space

[slavavov]

If they sign Kyrie next summer, they won't have any cap space or assets to field a good supporting cast around him, LeBron and AD.

We'd probably be forced to sign a bunch of washed vets like Ariza and Melo, as we did last summer.

No thanks.

[petergr]

Then they will spend the next 4 years trying to trade that contract?

[Megaton]

Hinging our bets to sign the 31 year old, unpredictable, future Fox News correspondent Kyrie Irving.
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Darvin Scam: https://media.tenor.com/images/3c15249955860a4b16b59e8ae035fb75/tenor.gif

[yinoma2001]

It's one thing to get Kyrie now via trade, and use Bird rights to re-sign him.

It's another to keep Russ on and basically punt another season, all in the hopes that Kyrie takes a less than max deal to join the Lakers, without the Lakers having any benefit of knowing how he fits with Ham and the organization.

Kyrie train has passed for me. Move on.
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From 2-10 to the Western Conference Finals

[J.C. Smith]

Pelinka just promised Lebron he'd do everything possible to allow them to contend every year. Keeping Russ for the season would not be doing that.

This does give them more options though. They could trade for expirings who can contribute now while retaining cap space. Or they could make a deal now, and then figure it out next summer.

Personally I'd trade for Hield and Turner. If they are happy with Turner and want him long term the cap space will be gone. If they aren't happy with the result for him or Hield they could let turner expire or try to move him in a sign and trade. Or try to offload the final year of Hield's contract to free up space.

It gives them a bit a flexibility they wouldn't have had if THT had a bad season and then opted in. But at some point they need to stop with the one year mercenaries and start trying to build a cohesive long term unit. If you make a move for guys like Turner and Hield, and they work out, you adjust your plan and use whatever cap room you have to just bring in above minimum role players, hopefully on multi year deals imo.

[venturalakersfan]

[dont_be_a_wuss]

LeBron 46.7M
AD 40.6M
Damian Jones 2.6M
Max Christie $1.7M
7 minimum roster charges $7M

Cap $130M-$133M

Space/What we can offer a free agent: $31.4M-$34.4M

rough estimate based on what is available on sportrac.