Through a potential Dejounte Murray trade, the Los Angeles Lakers might be able to avoid paying the luxury tax.
Dejounte Murray appears to be a target for the Los Angeles Lakers, who hope to work out a deal that the Atlanta Hawks will approve. The Lakers may be attempting to obtain a salary offset during that process, as explained by Bobby Marks and Brian Windhorst on an episode of The Hoop Collective, in order to avoid the luxury tax and save close to $16 million.
Bobby Marks: “The Lakers are $4.9 million below the first apron and $1.3 million over the luxury tax.” Four out of the last five years, the Lakers have been a repeater tax team. Even though it’s not much, they are still subject to the tax.
“There are ways for Lakers to make a trade to shed $1.3M to try and improve the roster and to get out of the tax.”
“Like a $19M player for a $15.7M player?” asked Bobby Marks.
Brian Windhorst: “Well, the Lakers can trade for Dejounte Murray and avoid the luxury repeater tax, which would save the team… in the neighborhood of $15 million. It doesn’t take high level cap mechanics to accomplish this.” Ownership Lakers can put that money to better use.”
