The 2023/24 season has been incredibly challenging for the Los Angeles Lakers, marked by ongoing injury woes, disgruntled star players, disappointing trade deadline outcomes, and mounting pressure on Head Coach Darvin Ham. With less than 30 regular-season games remaining, the Lakers currently languish at the 9th spot in the Western Conference standings. Their lofty preseason ambitions of an NBA title now look like a distant dream.

However, that’s not the end of the misery for the Lakers. Their failure to offload D’Angelo Russell before the trade deadline could significantly impact the Lakers’ preparations for the 2024/25 season. D’Angelo Russell has a player option on his contract with the Lakers worth approximately $18-million for the 2024/25 season. Should D-Lo choose to exercise his player option, it would push the Lakers beyond the second apron, which will have serious implications on their squad building abilities in the future.

Implications of being in the second apron

According to the Athletics’ Shams Charania, the NBA has projected the 2024/25 salary cap to be around $141 million. This indicates that teams with a payroll exceeding $189 million would fall under the second apron. ESPN estimates that nine teams – Warriors, Bucks, Clippers, Lakers, Suns, Heat, Nuggets, Celtics and Timberwolves – will fall under the second apron. Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), teams under the second apron would have to deal with some major implications, starting from the first day of the offseason.

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Firstly, teams in the second apron aren’t allowed to aggregate contracts, effectively ending the possibility of deals like James Harden to the Clippers and Damian Lillard to the Bucks. In addition to that, second-apron teams are prohibited from sending cash considerations in a trade. On top of that, teams cannot even use their pre-existing trade exceptions to acquire a player.

With Lakers being one of the teams projected to be under the second apron, such restrictions would significantly hamper their offseason plans. Now, if the Lakers want to trade for a disgruntled superstar in the offseason, they would either have to trade Anthony Davis or LeBron James (if he picks up his player option worth around $51.4 million) in the deal.

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Moving forward, team friendly deals, such as Austin Reaves’ four-year $53.8 million contract, will be of utmost importance. Furthermore, first-round draft picks would become the most valuable assets any team could possess. From 2024/25 season onwards, the era of superteams is well and truly over. What are your thoughts on the rule change? Let us know in the comments below!

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