If James leaves the team, the Lakers can sign a max-salary player next summer

LeBron James has truly entered a contract year for the first time in his career. He will become an unrestricted free agent next summer. If the Lakers re-sign James, they will lose salary space. But if James leaves, the Lakers will gain 55 million in salary space. This is due to Reeves's value-for-money contract in 2023. At that time, the Lakers used 4 years and 54 million to renew Reeves' contract. The latter's salary for the new season in 2026 was only 20.9 million US dollars.

The Lakers will do other operations first, and then renew Reeves' contract, so that their salary list will only be Reeves' 20.9 million, not the starting salary of the new contract (expected to be more than 30 million). However, if the league's expected average salary in the 2026-27 season is higher than 20.9 million, Neaves' salary will be 26.5 million, and the Lakers will reduce their salary space by 5.6 million. This is very critical to the operation of the Lakers: the starting salary of the maximum salary contract for the 7-9 years of playing in the 2026-27 season is 30% of the salary cap, which is about 49.8 million. The maximum salary for 10 years of playing experience is 35% of the salary cap, which is expected to be 58.1 million. Reeves could help the Lakers sign a max player in free agency.

If the Lakers do this, they can also get a 9.4 million space exception. At that time, they can let Ayton out of the contract and accept the space exception to renew for one year. Then use the early bird exception to give Ayton a larger contract in 2027. After a series of operations are completed, the Lakers can renew Reeves with a starting salary of more than 30 million.

In the 2026 free market, there are complete free agents such as Trae Young, James Harden, Zach LaVine, Draymond Green, and Coby White. Dyson Daniels, Kessler, Sheldon Sharp, Tarry Eason, Jaylen Duren and other restricted free agents. Of course, there may be big fish like Antetokounmpo in the trading market.

If Reeves chooses to sign with another team, the Lakers will gain 75 million in space.