Magic Johnson: Lakers Could Preserve Cap Room For 2019

Having spent the 2017 offseason clearing long-term salary from their books and signing new players to one-year deals, the Lakers haven’t hid the fact that they’re looking to make a huge splash in free agency in 2018. However, during an appearance on Spectrum Sportsnet’s “Connected With” series, president of basketball operations Magic Johnson suggested that the Lakers could save a portion of their cap room for 2019 if the club is unable to land two stars in 2018, per Harrison Faigen of Lakers Nation.

“We have cap space for probably two max guys, but that’s not to say we’ll use both of them,” Johnson said. “We want to if we can, but we have a Plan A and we have Plan B. Say we only get one of those guys, then we’ll make a decision on not to use the cap space. We can do that and save it for the class that’s coming the next year. We’re not going to give money away just because we have the cap space. I’m not about that.”

Although the Lakers have set themselves up to create a huge chunk of cap room for 2018, the team still has nearly $50MM in guaranteed salary on its books for next season, so additional moves would be required to clear enough room for two maximum-salary players. Waiving Luol Deng and trading Jordan Clarkson would likely do the trick for the Lakers, but if the team recognizes that it won’t be able to land two stars in free agency, it might make sense to hang onto Deng and Clarkson a little longer, potentially jettisoning them down the road.

Having been fined earlier this year for tampering with Paul George and the Pacers, Johnson won’t make the mistake of again discussing specific targets for the summer of 2018, but he pointed to the Celtics’ acquisition of Kyrie Irving as an example of a star player helping to take a young team to another level. That’s the sort of player Johnson and the Lakers will be targeting in free agency, with George, LeBron James, and DeMarcus Cousins among the stars likely to be on the club’s shopping list.

If the Lakers can’t land a player or two of that caliber, it would be smart to maintain flexibility for the summer of 2019. As Faigen notes in his piece at Lakers Nation, contracts like Deng’s and Timofey Mozgov‘s were the result of the 2016 Lakers using up all their cap room on non-stars, so that’s not a mistake the club’s new management group wants to repeat.

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