The Los Angeles Lakers have made their plans for this summer clear in their actions throughout the last year: To free up the most salary cap space possible and have the necessary flexibility to trade for a star or sign maximum-salaried NBA free agents.
But even the best-laid plans are never a guarantee, and the team has hedged in recent months, stating that they don’t have to sign any huge names this summer. Lakers president of basketball operations Magic Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka have pointed to preserving cap space for 2019 free agency.
If the Lakers do still want to recruit stars like LeBron James and/or Paul George this summer, however, they’ll still likely have the same amount of cap space the league has been projecting since the beginning of the season, according to Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report:
In a memo to teams, the NBA has NOT changed it's preseason salary cap projection, it remains at $101 mil for 2018-19 and 108 mil for 2019-20.