Lakers News: One Way LA Can Salvage Offseason

Can LA make any big moves?

With the Los Angeles Lakers striking out on multiple names this offseason, the roster is shaping up to be very similar to last season. Los Angeles was bounced in the first round of the postseason by the Denver Nuggets, showing that the team wasn't good enough to compete with the elites in the Western Conference.

At this point in the offseason, the Lakers have backed themselves into a corner with only a few ways out. The roster is at capacity and they are only a tiny amount under the dreaded second-apron tax.

So the Lakers front office will have to be clever in how they work themselves out of this mess. There aren't many ways to do so but insider Jovan Buha of The Athletic listed one easy way for the team to salvage the offseason, or at least start to do so.

"The most straightforward way the Lakers can add talent is to make a consolidation trade. They can either send out more players than they receive in a deal or salary-dump Reddish, Wood and/or Hayes, along with a second-round pick or two, onto a team with roster and financial flexibility. If the Lakers traded two minimum players (Wood, Hayes and Reddish would qualify), they’d have enough room under the second apron to sign a player to the $5.2 million taxpayer midlevel exception. They could also add a player in a trade or sign player(s) to minimum contracts."

Due to player options given to them last summer, guys like Cam Reddish, Jaxson Hayes, and Christian Wood are all back on the roster. This doesn't leave the team with any wiggle room and they will have to dump them to other teams with additional assets to free up space.

As Buha mentions, doing so could net the Lakers some flexibility to sign another player or two if the front office can open enough cap space. It won't be easy for this team to find significant upgrades but we are a long way away before the start of the regular season.

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