To be the best, you’ve got to pay the best! Words that many franchises in many sports have tried and many have failed at – Knicks, Yankees, Mavericks just to name a few.

Well, it’s the Lakers turn to step up to the cash register and pay to maintain their top spot as NBA World Champions.

With already one of the highest salaries in the NBA at $95 Million, Dr. Jerry Buss has shown his committment to winning and providing the city of Los Angeles with what they have been accustomed to for decades upon decades of NBA basketball – Championship Caliber Teams. In order to continue this commitment to winning, the Lakers have to address a very important situation this offseason – 2 of their key players are becoming free agents – Forwards Trevor Ariza and Lamar Odom.

Trevor has become a beloved player amongst Lakers Nation due to his uncanny ability to make the key defensive plays in clutch situations and his well-timed 3-point shooting on offense, so much so that he’s been officially renamed “A-Three-Za” here at LakersNation.com. Watching him grow as a professional, a player and a great teammate has been extremely gratifying to see and at the young age of 24, keeps us hopeful that more great plays and memories are to come in the near future.

Hoopshype is reporting that Ariza’s agent, David Lee, is looking to get between $8-9 Million a year for his client.

Lamar Odom came over to Los Angeles from Miami and was the main figure in the monster trade for Shaquille O’Neal after the 2004 season. LO has seen his fair share of criticsm as he he has never lived up to the All-Star potential that everyone has labeled him given his vast array of skills and physical gifts. Even with all the criticism, we’ve seen more flashes of greatness than disappearing acts this year and Lamar truly carried us through our toughest road trip of the year when we defeated both Boston and Cleveland at home, after Bynum went down with injuries. He also stepped it up big for us in the playoffs by 1) agreeing to go back to the bench for the betterment of the team and 2) playing the jack of all trades when the team needed him the most – getting boards, distributing the ball, taking it to the hole and playing tough D.

Lamar made $11.4 Million last year, but with his new role as a bench player and no longer being expected to be Kobe’s Scottie Pippen, that salary should be expected to be decreased with this new contract.

Now with all that being said, let’s review the Lakers Salary Cap Situation and see why signing these two important players is no easy task.

General Salary Cap Recap

The salary cap was started in 1984 to bascially level the playing field so that smaller market teams can compete by placing some restrictions on the big market teams to buy up all the good players (ahem, 60’s Celtics). Unlike the NHL or NFL, the NBA has a soft salary cap, so that teams who wish to exceed the salary cap can, but will have to pay a dollar for dollar tax for the amount exceeded.

Basically, the NBA says you can spend only 100 bucks per year on your team. If spend 105 dollars on your team, you will have to pay 5 MORE dollars because you went 5 dollars over the 100 dollar limit. So, the total payment for that team is $110.

Now, onto the real numbers the Lakers are facing this offseason. This is our current situation as of June 30, 2009 at 9pm PDT.

The Gold Bars are pretty much what’s keeping Mitch and Dr. Buss up at night because let’s say we look at the market value of Trevor and Lamar based on similar skill sets and pecking order on their respective teams:

So basically, you can see that Trevor’s agent isn’t asking for the moon when he’s aiming for his $8-9 Million, since he’s looking out for the best interest of his client.

Lamar, on the other hand, is looking at a salary decrease, but the question really is, how much of a discount are we going to get for moving Lamar to the bench when he could really be starting on most NBA teams.

Scenario No. 1 - Dr. Buss says F it, let’s just pay them market value:

We will be the highest paid team in the league by far! With a pre-tax total close to $100 Million Dollars and a Luxury Tax of $25 Million, the Lakers will HAVE TO make it to the Finals for Dr. Buss to turn a profit this year.

Scenario No. 2 – We Trevor his market value, let Lamar walk and sign Ron Artest to the Mid-Level Exception of $5.6 Million

Dr. Buss saves about $9 Million, but we lose a glue player and gain a possible headache. We address any “Lakers aren’t tough enough” questions that will ever be asked because we can send Ron Artest to go kill them and as soon as he gets his barber to put the Lakers Logo in his head, Lakers Nation will have no choice, but to say that “no comment” to his hair style. Also, I think Trevor might fold under the pressure of this relatively huge contract as no other 5th option in the league is paid this much.

Scenario No. 3 – Lamar and Trevor decide to give the Lakers a hometown discount because they know what they have something special here and want to build a dynasty.

The Lakers still have the highest paid team in the league, but only for the year as Adam Morrison’s contract comes off the book and we’ll have a one year battle for the point guard position to watch between Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmar. Keeping this team together will have the highest chance of reaching the Finals, so Dr. Buss can rest more comfortably as he knows he generates about $4 Million per playoff home game.

Scenario 4 – Being that I’m writing this when Kobe decides not to opt out of his contract kind of makes this scenario a moot point, but I’m going to throw it out there anyways to spark some conversation. Let’s say Kobe did opt out of his contract and resigns for less with the *wink wink* promise that he’ll get partial ownership of the Lakers much like how Magic Johnson was able to get his 3% ownership from back in the day.

In this situation, we keep the total due amount close to Dr. Buss’ desired amount of $100 Million. Kobe is happy to sign a 5 year deal worth about $75 Million + a percentage of a Franchise that Forbes magazine has valued at $584 Million December of 2008. We’re able to sign all our key players and make a real championship run for years to come.

As you can see, the Lakers are in a pretty difficult situation, as most championship teams are. It’s the halo effect of winning that values winning players more than what they should be really worth in the open market.

In my opinion, Trevor is worth $6.5 Million a year and Lamar, I would give him $9.5 Million a year.

To make this happen, Mitch Kupchak is going to have to really get on the phone and work this salary cap situation. This is what he has to play with:

• Adam Morrison’s expiring contract of $5.2 Million. We can trade that for a future draft pick or the rights to a player some team has stashed away in Asia or Europe.
• Jordan Farmar’s expiring contract of $1.9 Million. The thing about this is that Jordan is a valued player in the league. If I were to trade him, I would insist on including Sasha in the trade so that we can get his $5 Million contract off our books as well.

I know you would love to trade Luke and Sasha (I can understand Sasha, but I don’t agree with Luke), but why would any team want them if we don’t even want them. Even as fans, we can see these as bloated contracts, so a seasoned NBA GM will probably avoid them as well.

So there you have it, the current Lakers Free Agent and Salary Cap situation. Now that you know the numbers, what kind of scenarios can you think of? Any asping General Managers . . . here’s your chance!

Thanks to the following for reference help:

Forum Blue & Gold

Hoops Hype

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