What A Lakers' Roster With Kawhi Leonard Could Look Like After NBA Free Agency In 2019-2020

Adding Kawhi Leonard to a team that already includes LeBron James and Anthony Davis would arguably give the Los Angeles Lakers the greatest trio in NBA history. Doing so would also create a challenge for L.A. in filling out the rest of their roster.

With James and Davis set to make a combined $64.5 million for the 2019-2020 season, signing Leonard to a max contract would use up the rest of the Lakers’ salary cap space. Los Angeles would only be able to sign other players using the room exception ($4.7 million) and contracts worth the minimum salary.

Making a trade to improve the team would be incredibly difficult. The Lakers don’t have a first-round pick to move because of what it took to acquire Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans. Without any salary cap space, Los Angeles can’t trade for a player that’s making any kind of significant money.

What could the Lakers look like if they are centered around a Leonard-James-Davis Big 3?

Kyle Kuzma is still on the roster after the organization did all it could to hold onto him during trade negotiations with New Orleans. He’s a more than serviceable fourth option, having ranked second on the Lakers with 18.7 points per game last season.

Talen Horton-Tucker is the one player the Lakers came away with in the NBA Draft. Los Angeles bought his rights from the Orlando Magic after he was taken with the No.46 overall pick.

Los Angeles will have to look to free agency to find the rest of its roster for next season. That means acquiring a cheap guard to insert into the starting lineup to go along with an entire bench.

By waiting for Leonard’s decision, the Lakers have been forced to watch just about all of the top free agents come off the board. Most of their top targets have signed elsewhere, and the few remaining impact players are likely out of Los Angeles’ price range.

Aside from Leonard, DeMarcus Cousins is the top player in free agency. He doesn’t fit the Lakers’ need for a guard and will likely want more than the $4.7 million room exception.

Danny Green is the best guard on the market. He has spoken with the Lakers about a possible contract. Maybe he would consider signing with the team if Leonard goes to the Los Angeles Clippers. It’s hard to imagine the shooting guard taking a massive pay cut from the $10 million he made last year.

Don’t expect Marcus Morris to join the Lakers for fewer than $5 million per year after he had the best season of his career. The forward averaged 13.9 points and 6.1 rebounds per game for the Boston Celtics.

Other available names include Kelly Oubre, Jabari Parker and Willie Cauley-Stein, none of whom make a ton of sense for Los Angeles.

The Lakers will probably look to return a few players that were on the team last season, even if they had disappointing years.

Rajon Rondo remains unsigned and would fill the need of a backup point guard. He probably wouldn’t earn much more than the veteran minimum elsewhere.

The same goes for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. The shooting guard is actually a decent fit for the Lakers because of his ability to be a competent three-point shooter and defender. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s a client of Klutch Sports, which represents both James and Davis, and the Lakers seemingly overpaid him the last two seasons.

There’s also Alex Caruso and Jonathan Williams. The Lakers extended qualifying offers to both players at the end of June. They played a combined 49 games for Los Angeles last season.

Tyson Chandler could return as the Lakers’ backup center, a role he filled for half of the 2018-2019 campaign.

If Leonard goes to the Lakers, the team’s biggest acquisitions could be veterans that are focused on winning championships and might be willing to leave money on the table in order to do so.

Andre Iguodala is the No.1 such candidate. The Golden State Warriors sent him to the Memphis Grizzlies as part of a sign-and-trade that included D’Angelo Russell. Iguodala is set to make more than $17 million on a rebuilding Grizzlies’ team. There’s a good chance Iguodala will receive a buyout at some point, and the Lakers are reportedly his most likely landing spot.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see Kyle Korver also go from Memphis to L.A. after a buyout. Only $3.44 million of Korver’s $7.5 million salary for next year is guaranteed if he’s waived by July 7. The Grizzlies don’t have much use for the 38-year-old, whom they acquired to make the Mike Conley trade work under the salary cap restrictions. Korver will be looking for his first ring in his 17th NBA season, and returning home to California to play with ex-teammate LeBron James could make sense for both sides.

No one has more of a reason to chase a ring than Vince Carter. He hasn’t won a title in his 20 NBA seasons and could actually provide the Lakers with some solid three-point shooting.

There are rumors that Carmelo Anthony could sign with the Lakers after sitting out most of last year. It helps that Anthony and James are good friends, though his time as a useful NBA player might be done.

Those are the kinds of players that the Lakers will be forced to acquire if they use all of their cap space on a few stars. Just look at the 2010-2011 Miami Heat, who began the era of super-teams with James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh joining forces. Veterans like Mike Bibby, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Erick Dampier and Juwan Howard all got playing time on that Heat team in the twilight of their respective careers.

It eventually paid off for Miami, who went to four straight NBA Finals and won two championships with three stars making up the majority of the payroll.

Leonard, James and Davis are so good that they could bring the Lakers several titles, no matter what the rest of the roster looks like.