The Lakers’ decision to trade for Russell Westbrook will have lasting implications on the team’s salary cap over the next two seasons past his own salary. With Westbrook, LeBron James and Anthony Davis combined making over $120 million next season, the Lakers were left with few options for filling out the rest of the roster.
The result was a host of veteran’s minimum contracts, using the majority of their taxpayer midlevel exception on Kendrick Nunn and retaining Talen Horton-Tucker in a bigger, longer deal. Because of that, the Lakers will struggle to make many in-season trades without larger salaries to aggregate together.