Lakers Sit in Lapse of Luxury

The 2001 NBA free-agent bazaar, which was to open today, will be delayed until the league and the players can agree on the details of the new salary cap.

Lawyers were unable to finalize the agreement late Tuesday night, so the salary cap will increase on an interim basis from $35.5 million to $35.956 million. Teams were expecting the new cap to be about $42.5 million.

When the signing period does finally start, prices will be marked down and heading lower.

It’s a new NBA, even at the top, where your twice-defending champion Lakers, coming off two monumental cash harvests, are freezing their payroll, even at the risk of leaving holes in their roster.

Faced with a new dollar-for-dollar luxury tax, owner Jerry Buss is determined to hold the line at the threshold, which will be around $55 million.

This leaves General Manager Mitch Kupchak a $2.5-million budget to fund replacements for Horace Grant and Tyronn Lue, who are expected to leave a team that was already thin before Derek Fisher and Mark Madsen underwent surgery.

In the 1980s, when Buss, not Portland’s Paul Allen, was the lavish spender everyone feared, the Lakers didn’t have budget problems, or for that matter, budgets.

“This is stuff that never used to happen,” one Laker insider says. “No one has won more than Jerry Buss in the last 20 years. On the other hand, the world is changing.

“He thinks this is the way to do it. You can’t fault him until he doesn’t do it.”

You could note, however, that Buss has again raised ticket prices, which were already sky-high, in the midst of this austerity program.

The Lakers have a $4.25-million “middle-class exception,” but don’t plan to use all of it. Instead, they’ll try to get a guard and a big man, possibly former Wizard Mitch Richmond and former Spur Samaki Walker, for $1.25 million each.

Richmond accepted a $10-million buyout from the Wizards, making it easier for him to take less money in a better situation. Last week his agent, Michael Sharpe, was saying they were leaning toward “a West Coast team,” which everyone understood to be the Lakers.

However, Walker, bought out for $600,000 to free money for David Robinson and Derek Anderson, is seeking the best offer. If he gets one for $2 million, the Lakers may not match it, because that would mean tiptoeing over the threshold.

Teams going over will not only pay the luxury tax, they’ll also forfeit their shares of the tax money (estimated at $2 million a team) and their shares of the players’ escrow money (estimated at another $500,000).

Thus, going over the threshold by $1 million means paying $1 million in tax and losing $2.5 million more, for a real cost of $4.5 million.

The Lakers say they might go just a tad over the threshold, but Buss may not let them go this far.

Most owners have taken similar vows not to trigger the tax, and many are richer than Buss. As Laker officials are fond of noting, Buss is like the proprietor of a mom-and-pop store, compared to billionaires such Allen, Miami’s Micky Arison, Atlanta’s Ted Turner, Minnesota’s Glen Taylor, and, of course, Dallas’ Mark Cuban.

Buss has no other source of income and a swinging lifestyle to support. He has huge administrative expenses, with Phil Jackson making $6 million a year and triggering annual $2-million bonuses for winning the title, four assistant coaches splitting almost $2 million, and Jerry West drawing $1 million to act as a consultant and not go to work for the Clippers.

Nevertheless, Buss is not without resources.

Hitting it big at the right time, winning titles his first two seasons in a new arena, his team is the NBA’s biggest grosser. Laker financial numbers are a closely guarded secret, but insiders estimate they turned a profit of $50-60 million in the last two seasons. Their economy drive isn’t a moral and economic imperative but a choice Buss has made.

The Lakers have a powerful nucleus, otherwise known as Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, assuring Buss he’ll field an elite team for the foreseeable future.

Still, it’s an incomplete elite team.

Grant was fading at 35 but could still defend against big power forwards. If he signs in Orlando, where a news conference has been called for today, the Lakers will have nothing left to show for Eddie Jones, Elden Campbell and Glen Rice.

The Lakers are thought to have offered Grant $1.3 million, half of the money they have under the luxury-tax threshold. Grant, who lives in Orlando, is thought to be getting a two-year, $4.2-million deal from the Magic.

This would force Robert Horry back into the Laker starting lineup, which is the only way they’re ever going to get him back in.

In the two seasons before Jackson, Horry turned down requests to start by coaches Del Harris and Kurt Rambis. Horry is famous for chilling all season and turning it on in the playoffs, but the Lakers might no longer be able to afford a Finals specialist.

The other returning power forward, Slava Medvedenko, may not be the defender they need. He took down five rebounds in his last two summer league games.

If Richmond doesn’t work out, the Lakers will look for another (inexpensive) perimeter scorer, such as Chicago’s Fred Hoiberg. And if Walker goes elsewhere, the team will move on to Plan B, someone like Orlando’s John Amaechi.

The new phrase one hears in Lakerdom is, “We’re going to let the competitive system work.”

Or in other words, don’t expect us to load up for domination, because we can’t afford it.

Of course, it’s the same story all over.

The collective bargaining agreement that ended the 1999 lockout gave players the benefit of the doubt but protected owners by imposing a luxury tax in the third year, with a 10% escrow on players’ salaries, if they rose above 53% of league revenue.

In fact, the players hit 61% but here comes Year 3.

The compounding effect of the tax and the loss of one’s share of tax and escrow money has suddenly turned the NBA’s old “soft” salary cap, which many owners ignored, into a “hard” cap, which scares everyone but Cuban.

In addition, only a few teams have major cap space and they’re either black holes (Chicago and Detroit) or not shopping (the Clippers). As a result, only the second-echelon free agents are relocating.

The plums, Sacramento’s Chris Webber and Toronto’s Antonio Davis, both looked ready to ramble a month ago but are now expected to re-sign.

Of the 14 biggest “done deals,” nine players are staying. Only two of the five changing teams were starters, 38-year-old Patrick Ewing, headed from Seattle to Orlando, and Clarence Weatherspoon, going from Cleveland to the Knicks.

Owners as rich as the Trail Blazers’ Allen, a Microsoft co-founder, who’s now down for $34 million in tax, raising the tab for his $89-million payroll to $123 million, are reportedly trying to dump salary.

Arison, who owns Carnival Cruise Lines and gave Heat Coach-President Pat Riley a blank check, has taken it back, putting a severe crimp in Riley’s rebuilding plans, obliging him to dump Tim Hardaway, even before bringing in another point guard.

Riley is a veterans’ coach, but without Hardaway, all he would have at the point would be 26-year-old Anthony Carter and 23-year-old Eddie House.

This may or may not be why Riley has been musing about how long he’ll continue coaching.

Once he brought Michael Cooper, Maurice Lucas and Bob McAdoo off his bench, but that was in a land far, far away and a long, long time ago.

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The Big Fish

The big NBA free agents and where they’re going, or not going:

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Player Team Contract (avg. in millions) Dikembe Mutombo Phi. 5 years, $87 million ($17.4) Allan Houston N.Y. 6 years, $99 million ($16.5) Antonio Davis Tor. 5 years, $60 million ($12.0) David Robinson S.A. 2 years, $20 million ($10.0) Doug Christie Sac. 7 years, $48 million ($6.85) Eddie Robinson Chi. 5 years, $30 million ($6.0) Aaron McKie Phi. 5 years, $30 million ($6.0) Jerome Williams Tor. 7 years, $40.8 million ($5.8) Nazr Mohammed Atl. 5 years, $28.5 million ($5.7) Todd MacCulloch N.J. 6 years, $33.8 million ($5.6) Clarence Weatherspoon N.Y. 5 years, $27 million ($5.4) Christian Laettner Wash. 4 years, $21 million ($5.2) Patrick Ewing Orl. 1 year, $2.25 million ($2.25) Tyronn Lue Wash. 2 years, $3.1 million ($1.55)

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