What’s the Right Price to Keep Each LA Lakers Free Agent?

The Los Angeles Lakers have a complex puzzle to solve in free agency this summer. A large piece of that puzzle is deciding what to do with all of their own impending free agents.

Nine Lakers are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents—nine when Nick Young opts out of his contract—and two more will be restricted.

Obviously, not all of those players will be brought back. The Lakers are in rebuilding mode and need to preserve as much cap space as possible for superstar free agents. Thus, each in-house free agent has a price threshold past which the organization will be content to let them go.

Our job is to zero in on where that inflection point lies.

Of course, there are a couple of guys whom the Lakers will move on from without ever negotiating a new deal with them—Chris Kaman, MarShon Brooks—because they simply do not fit what the franchise is trying to accomplish at this stage.

We're leaving those players off the list.

Also absent are the two restricted free agents—Kent Bazemore and Ryan Kelly—because their prices are contingent on offer sheets extended to them by other teams.

That leaves seven impending free agents. At what cost would L.A. be willing to retain them? 

Let's go through each case in descending order of their 2013-14 salary.

 

Note: All salary information obtained from Sham Sports.

Begin Slideshow

...

About the Author