None of their minimum-salaried players hold much trade value due to their expiring contracts, and the only first-round pick they could legally offer was their 2027 selection.
Their reported 20-year pact with Spectrum will pay the Lakers an estimated $3 billion over the life of the deal, granting them significantly more local television revenue than most teams, and their position as a global brand in an enormous city opens the door for far more gate, merchandising and ancillary revenue as well.
The Lakers, according to multiple reporters, did not seem especially eager to take on more salary.
“They would do something if it was low-hanging fruit but they weren’t really willing to feel any pain, whether that was luxury tax money, whether that was more encumberment in the future, whether that was draft compensation.
Wood is a dynamic offensive center, but his skill set becomes somewhat redundant on a team with one of the few big men in Anthony Davis that’s better at the things that make him special in the first place.
As inconsequential as $890,000 might seem in NBA terms, it could have proven pretty meaningful to a team with only two rostered players making anything between the max or the minimum.
The Lakers are spending quite a bit of money relative to the rest of the league, but they’re getting outmuscled in the financial arms race that the NBA’s best teams, even those without an estimated $150 million in local television revenue, almost have to participate in if they hope to sustain championship contention.
They could have done so with two minimum salaries, an addition they seemingly should have been interested in making in order to clear roster spots for the buyout market.
Ballmer has proven willing to spend whatever it takes to give the Clippers a competitive advantage even in the seasons in which they have no feasible chance at winning the championship.