LeBron James Discussion: Not Returning To The Lakers

The thing is, if you're operating under the cap, for who? I listed the FA's that aren't restricted the other day. Half of the top 12 are all our guys.

And there is no benefit to operating under the cap when it comes to trades, we get the same benefit over the cap. So I just don't see the point?

These are the top FA's according to Bleacher Report:

1) LeBron James
2) Austin Reaves
3) Ayo Dosunmu
4) Norman Powell
5) Rui Hachimura
6) Tobias Harris
7) CJ McCollum
8) Kelly Oubre Jr
9) Marcus Smart
10) Coby White
11) Quentin Grimes
12) Luke Kennard
13) Mitchell Robinson
14) Collin Gillepsie
15) Porzingis
16) Dean Wade
17) John Collins
18) Jordan Goodwin
19) Anfernee Simmons
20) Jaxson Hayes

Who would we like to open up cap space for? Ayo?

 

Yeah him choosing in August is perfect for us.
We do our job not counting with him, spending all the available money in roster additions and then if he wants to comeback, he adds to it. If not, we already juiced up the roster

Thanks Bron!

 

i don't follow this repeated line of logic at all. you can take back 7 million more in trades if you're under the apron, up to 30 or so, then it's 125%. that's it. if you're under the cap, you can trade nothing for a player. or trade a pick. this is a gigantic difference, particularly in a league where aprons must be dodged, etc.

again, absorbing cam johnson for nothing would help the nuggets quite a bit, and he'd be the best available UFA on the market this year. denver would have to pay to get off christian braun, and he'd be like, our 5th best player (behind smart, ahead of ayton/hayes).

and these are just the obvious examples. who knows which player is disgruntled out there and whether instantaneous salary relief might carry weight for that player's team. you can't just say that vando/jake/knecht holds the same value because it can take back similar money--the team that takes them must eat vando for two years and the other two all of next year. expirings aren't worth much in the summer, as we learned (painfully) last summer, when we begged everyone to take the now-indispensable rui from us (lol).

 

LeBron James Could DECIDE to PLAY or RETIRE July, or Even August. Would Lakers WAIT?

 

Attention! Attention! I need everyone to pay attention to me because I’m sitting at home and not in the spotlight!
Pay attention to me!
It’s all about me, remember?
I’m the King! I’m the GOAT.
Right, guys?
Guys?

 

LeBron James LIED About Future?! Plus Giannis Trade Value JUST WENT UP For One Reason

 

It's TIME! What A LeBron Sign And Trade To Cavs Would Look Like

 

I was under the impression you can't package players in a S&T?

anyway only player that should really interest us is Allen

 

Man why in the hell would Cleveland trade Allen for 1 year of Lebron?

They would probably trade us Harden in a hot second tho.

 

Strus is a good defender and can shoot- I would be more than happy to get Allen and Strus back.
I would like to keep Ayton to trade for another piece at the dead line.

 

everyone always says this, but i'm pretty sure there's no actual rule preventing it. it just doesn't happen much, for various reasons.

 

If you are above the 2nd apron it has to be player for player.

 

yes, but cleveland has ways to get under that, if they want. and they'd have to get under the 1st apron (comfortably) to receive an S&T anyway.

all i'm saying is that you can S&T a guy and add another player outgoing. nothing in the rules says you can't. i think there may be an exception if you're under the cap, though. that wouldn't be the situation for us, i don't think.

anyway, i don't see this happening. now, i could see a S&T with rui and someone else outgoing if we were operating over the cap...

 

This says you can't do that, I think this came up with a Austin for Giannis trade.


Outgoing Trade Restrictions: The team sending out the sign-and-trade player cannot aggregate that player's new salary with other contracts on their roster. The sign-and-trade player must be traded completely by themselves.

 

Yeah I think you can't aggregate a sign & trades (done via bird rights) with other players - there is a 2 month restriction before trading the newly signed player that you got with bird rights. If you use cap space to sign a player, you can sign them and then trade them immediately.

For example, we couldn't sign and trade Rui + Vando to get someone. If we operated under the apron, we could use cap space to sign Rui and then trade him and Vando for someone. But we wouldn't be able to go over the cap to do it. They've basically closed that loophole to adding more salary slots.

 

can someone please link to the rule where it states that outgoing players signed with bird rights can't be S&Td with players under contract? i found one fan on the internet claiming svtzr's rule but without support. if it is, this was a change in the most recent cba, as this was fairly common practice for years. i know this because the previous cba closed the other, more egregious loophole--that you could sign players to fully non-guaranteed contracts and trade them (these were frequently aggregated, too, in some famous trades).

anyway, if it's true that you can only do it with cap space, then it effectively means you can't aggregate at all because there's a separate rule about non-aggregation in that case, i believe.

i wonder what imaginary case served as the reason for these rules, tbh. because i can't ever remember someone egregiously exploiting S&T in the way that appears to be banned now. the only thing it will do is further dampen player movement, tbh.

 

I can’t find the exact section under the CBA, I’ve just seen it reported before. However what I did find was that if a player is signed with Bird rights, he can’t be aggregated with other players for two months in a trade. So I believe this could be it? Either you sign and trade a player with bird rights on their own - or you sign them to cap space and then do a trade as per normal.

I believe the concept of this is pretty simple. Let’s say our salary is at 165m, and we decide to trade Hayes for Claxton, we couldn’t sign Hayes to a 20m dollar deal and trade him with Knecht for Claxton. It would be an easy way to build new salary slots - all you do is not guarantee Hayes’ contract past year 1. Unfortunately GM’s like Morey abused the wording of things like this way too often and didn’t operate in the intent of the CBA, so now we have less flexibility.

One thing I did find that we’ve spoken about before is the continual accrual of bird rights after they’ve been waived for wondering like a MLE or minimum contract.

 

LeBron's Top Plays 2026 Season

 

yeah, i believe it...i just don't know if it does much because you can just sign hayes for xx$ more and it does the same thing. what if the other team would rather have the player? that's just pure "saving the owners from themselves" stuff, imo.

 

It just stops GM’s giving minimum level tole players large 1 year deals to go out and get a big fish. Yes you can sign Hayes, but then you can’t really trade him till December, it slows the whole process down and when free agents want something clear and concrete - it de incentives the whole thing.

I think maybe the CBA went too far this time personally.