In NBA news from Los Angeles, Donald T. Sterling isn’t “mentally incapacitated,” or at least won’t be certified as such in Probate Court, where his wife is now trying to pry his cold, if not dead fingers off the Clippers franchise.
Both sides have agreed to make the Sterling Trust agreement between Donald and Shelly the issue, rather than Donald’s actual state of mind.
In other words, it doesn’t matter if he’s wacky. If the judge agrees that the trust agreement stipulated only that two doctors had to say so to put Shelly in charge, nice knowing you, Donnie.
Two doctors did say that, whereupon Donald left long, anguished messages on their answering machines (“You’re nothing but a fraud a liar and a cheat and I’m going to see that you lose your license and I’m suing you for conspiracy… What a horrible woman you are. All you did was go to the Beverly Hills Hotel and drink the liquor. I’ve got a stack—two declarations from people who said that all you did was cry and drink and complain about your life and then you write about me, that I’m incompetent? How dare you?”)
Meanwhile, on the other side of the tracks….
That’s right, the Lakers, still the local kingpins with a following that beggars that of the reborn, first-place Dodgers and all the other teams put together, even if you can’t tell it in the standings, where the Clippers have beaten them by 41 games the last two seasons.
These are dark days for the Lakers, heading into next season with little more hope than they had last season.
At least, that was how it was before the news that they’re expected to meet with… drumroll… Carmelo Anthony!
Yes, that Carmelo Anthony. The superstar free agent who hasn’t said he has to get a max offer… yet… publicly, at least.
The Lakers are also reportedly reaching out to LeBron James, the one who has said “Max me.” Of course, if they were going to pursue Bron, or Melo, it would have been a good idea to hold off on giving Kobe Bryant that two-year $48.5 million extension.
With Kobe ($23.5 million next season) Steve Nash ($9 million), Julius Randle ($2.5 million), Ryan Kelly ($1 million) and Kendall Marshall and Robert Sacre ($900,000 each), that’s $37.8 million.
Add $22.5 million for the first year of a max salary for Melo, that’s $60.3 million.
With Bron, whose first-year salary on a max deal would be $20 million, that would be $57.8 million
With the tax threshold at $77 million—which the Lakers must get under to avoid repeater penalties—that would leave $16.7 million for five more players with Melo, or $19.2 million with Bron, assuming they sign their own guys so they can exceed the $62.3 million cap.
In other words, Melo or Bron would be coming to play with about-to-turn-36 Kobe, the 40-year-old Nash, Randle, Marshall, Kelly and Sacre.
Oh, yeah, and they’re in the West where there’s no we-can-sneak-into-the-playoffs scenario, as there is on Bron and Melo’s current teams in the East.
In other words, neither Melo nor LeBron is coming, if they’re in their right mind.
(The Lakers can cut Nash and stretch his $9 million over three seasons, dropping next season’s hit to $3 million. Not that having $23-$25 million for five players is likely to change the equation.)
So, Bron will be sending along a polite “no thanks” any day now.
As for Melo, why exactly would he sit down with the Lakers, as he reportedly will?
The answer to why he’s interested in them against all logic… and why they’re interested in him when they never have been before… is Bryant.
Of all the stars in the NBA, Melo is closest to Kobe, looking at him as a big brother.
Melo may be taking the meeting because Kobe asked him to. The Lakers may be taking the meeting to keep Kobe happy.
If you’re the Lakers and it’s still about winning titles rather than milking the cash cow or trying to get the fans off Jim Buss’s back, you can’t sign Melo.
One, there’s not enough money left over to buy a contending team in the West.
Two, if you’d see the best Melo there has ever been playing alongside the commanding Bryant, you also must remember that Anthony is 30 and has been past the first round twice in his 11-year career.
No, that’s now who you want to put at the center of this rebuilding project.
It’s actually a test of whether the Lakers have the, uh, stomach to execute their salary cap strategy, which would give them the ability to sign a max player (Kevin Love?) in 2015 and or two (Kevin Durant?) in 2016.
If they sign Melo, or Chris Bosh or any other free agent (other than LeBron, assuming he feels like being the Mother Teresa of Lakerdom), they flunk.
Your move, guys.
Hall of Fame writer Mark Heisler is a founding member and regular contributor to SheridanHoops, the Orange County Register and Forbes.com. Follow him on Twitter.
CLIPPER TIME IN L.A. AT LAST. WELL, IT WAS THERE FOR A SECOND
POSTSEASON AWARD CHOICES
DEAR DONALD: CONGRATULATIONS ON NO LONGER BEING THE LOCAL WRETCH
DAVID STERN, THE MJ OF COMMISSIONERS, CALLS IT QUITS
KOBE’S RETURN – NOT QUITE AS IN DAYS OF YORE
LAKERS’ LONG-TERM TARGETS: LOVE, DURANT, KYRIE
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