Breaking down a potential DeMarcus Cousins deal involving the Orlando Magic
Piecing together a deal
Unlike the two trade partners here, the Magic are well under the cap. They actually had to pay the penalty for being below the salary floor. They can take on extra money if that is what they want to do.
What is important here is the Lakers and Kings send out the same money as they receive.
So the Kings are definitely trading Cousins to the Lakers (keep up with the math here). That means the Lakers need to send out $14.7 million without a trade exception to absorb those costs. Likely the Lakers will also send out the second overall pick to the Kings as part of the deal, because that is what the Kings will want. Draft picks do not count against this number though.
How do the Lakers get this number? They would have to trade something to the Magic or a third team or to the Kings.
The highest salary the Lakers have available to trade is Nick Young’s nearly $5 million. Does that sound like a player the Magic would be interested in? Not to me. Maybe the Kings, but no one knows how that would work.
Looking at the way this deal would have to be pieced together, the Lakers just do not have the salary to send out to make it work. That is, until after the Draft and after the salary cap gets set so the calendar can turn to the 2016 season.
Assuming the minimum salary cap space available for all teams — Lakers would have $15 million, Kings would have no cap room and the Magic would have $8.9 million — the Lakers would still need some help to acquire Cousins (he is owed a bump up to $15.9 million in salary in 2016).
What the issue with this deal, as you can see, is the Lakers simply do not have the assets to acquire Cousins by themselves. Would the Kings make a deal to acquire only Jahlil Okafor for Cousins? I doubt it. It seems like they would want something else.
These extra assets are why the teams are trying to pull the Magic in.
The question is though what do the Magic have that the Kings (or Lakers) might want? And what do either of those teams have that the Magic would want?
Ben McLemore and Nik Stauskas are attractive because they are young. Rudy Gay might add some more consistent offense and star power to the team (they would have to renounce Tobias Harris or send out more salary to make the deal work).
The bigger question is to ask just how much a team like the Lakers values guys like Andrew Nicholson or Maurice Harkless or even Channing Frye. And, again, is Okafor by himself enough to entice the Kings.
Otherwise the Magic could try to pry whoever gets picked with the second overall pick from the Lakers/Kings and send out Nikola Vucevic. If the Kings trade away Cousins, they could easily acquire Vucevic under the trade rules.
See how complicated this gets?
The Lakers are pushing and trying to find every way they can to acquire a star of Cousins’ caliber. But it does not look like they will do so easily. It is going to take finding the right package to entice the Kings.
Maybe that package includes Vucevic ($11.75 million salary in 2016) to help soften the blow with someone a little more proven and another pick. That is taking on salary to match Cousins.
But what do the Magic get out of this? That part does not seem entirely clear. They would want at least the player selected with the second or sixth pick (and to hold on to their fifth pick). They may want Gay. They may want one of the Kings’ past two first round picks — Stauskas or McLemore.
At the end of the day, none of that seems completely worth it.
Obviously, the teams are still in exploratory talks if that still. It looks like the Lakers and Kings will take these negotiations past the Draft until the calendar turns to the 2016 season because of the Lakers’ inability to take on salary under the 2015 cap.
In other words, this is a story that will not go away until Cousins is traded. Whether or not the Magic are involved at the end, that seems pretty uncertain.