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Just before the Lakers started against the Dallas Mavericks on Christmas Day, we got a special Woj Bomb from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who reports that the Lakers and current starter Dennis Schröder have been talking about a contract extension, although Schröder passed. Lakers initial offering.
The Los Angeles Lakers have begun interacting with starting point guard Dennis Schroder in contract extension talks, and those discussions are expected to resume in mid-February, sources told ESPN.
Before the start of the season, Schroder turned down an initial offer from the Lakers to extend his contract for an additional two years and $ 33.4 million, sources said, a proposal that represented the maximum allowable offer the Lakers could make to him before the 16. February.
However, it appears that Schröder mostly turned down that offer because the Lakers can offer more starting Feb. 16, and they can continue to do so until the 2021 offseason begins.
The Lakers can offer a starting salary of $ 18.6 million beginning in the 2021-2022 season, creating a much more realistic opportunity for the Lakers, Schroder, and their agent, Alex Saratsis, to find a landing spot in an extension of market value. with the Lakers.
If there is no deal before the offseason, the Lakers owned Schroder’s bird rights to exceed the salary cap by re-signing him. Losing Schroder to free agency would leave the Lakers limited to replace him, because they would only have a $ 9.5 million mid-level exception available to use in free agency.
That would be an expensive extension, but it makes sense for the same reasons it made sense to give Kyle Kuzma a $ 40 million extension for three years: because the Lakers have already invested in Schröder, because they can’t easily replace him, and because basically They are worn out anyway.
When the Lakers expanded LeBron James and Anthony Davis before training camp, they seized any opportunity they had to have significant cap space until at least the summer of 2023. And that’s not a bad thing! Having LeBron and AD voluntarily play for your team is a great thing, even if it’s expensive. The side effect of that, however, is that the Lakers won’t have room under the cap to offer much to players for whom they don’t have Bird’s rights, making it difficult to replace departing taxpayers. With Kuzma, that meant giving him an extension almost the size of a starter, and it could cost even more to keep Schröder, his current current starter.
And similarly to Kuzma, in whom the Lakers invested development resources, exploration time, and a draft pick, the Lakers have also given up real assets to bring Schröder to Los Angeles, as it cost them their first-round pick. 2020 and Danny Green. And even if you don’t like the latter’s game, at the very least he had a contract that was an easy salary drag for a large acquisition. If the Lakers gave up on that and Schröder swims, and as Woj describes, they only have half the cash to replace him that he’s looking for in a free agent market that will have no shortage of teams with a lot of room, then they won. . Being able to get closer to finding a player of your caliber. Schröder and his team clearly know this, which is the main reason for rejecting the Lakers’ initial offer, plus the team can theoretically offer more later.
So for now, it looks like this is a waiting game. And the Lakers will also have to see how Schröder continues to play. If he hypothetically played through February while looking like a horrible fit alongside James and Davis, then the team would probably be less of a rush to retain him.
But if Schröder produces on this team in the way that a player with his skills and talents should be able to, it is impossible to argue against giving him the money he wants, because at this point we are not talking about ramifications of the salary space. We’re talking about how much Jeanie Buss would be willing to pay in luxury taxes, with no significant hit to the list beyond that, and the only person who should worry about that bill is the person who has to pay it.
Basically, if Schröder looks good, there is no excuse not to retain him. The good news is, if you do, we know this is a group of owners who have always been happy to pay as much as necessary to compete for titles, something that the recent extensions the Lakers already signed are just the last chance. Today’s leak appears to be that both parties are saying “okay, see Dennis, and then we’ll talk in February.” And the fact that that’s where the conversations sit is a promising sign.
This unfolding story can be updated with more information. For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast at iTunes, Spotify, Stapler or Google Podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.
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