Free agency has been burglarized—ransacked of logic and sensibility.
Our culprit is the Los Angeles Lakers, who stole—yes, stole—Ed Davis from the open market, per Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski:
This happened.
The Lakers signed Davis.
They stole Davis.
Terrific Terms
Everything about this deal has "obnoxious bargain" written all over it.
It's essentially a one-year pact that ensures the Lakers will have maximum financial flexibility next summer when stars like Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge, Rajon Rondo and Marc Gasol are expected to be available.
That's not a coincidence. The Lakers are looking to summer 2015 as their championship lifeline, their last opportunity to assemble a title contender around the aging Kobe Bryant. They structured Jordan Hill's deal in similar fashion:
Davis' is different in that he holds a player option, so the choice is his. And it's different because it doesn't actually matter whether he opts in. That's how cheap he is.
Paying him an average of $1 million this season and next won't diminish the Lakers' spending power or cost them a shot at chasing stars. Locking him down at this price is, in fact, a selling point for prospective targets.
He won't actually opt in, of course. Barring injury or a performance of unprecedentedly bad proportions, he will reach free agency once again, where there should be more money waiting for him.
There should have been more money waiting for him now.
At a time when Trevor Booker secured a two-year, $10 million deal from the Utah Jazz, there should have been a bigger, more lucrative pact awaiting Davis.
There wasn't.
And the Lakers aren't complaining.
Tr...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
