The Lakers Are The Best Team In The League For A Reason

great comment Wild Yams. i agree with everything you said.

Man, you guys are posting at an absolutely furious rate around here! Gracias for all the content :)

I hate to say it, but entries like these kinda reflect your latent Laker hatred. After all, LA was the best team in the league last year without having the highest payroll. And then you make a semi-snide crack about Bynum still being overpaid. Really? What do you think a 22 year old seven footer with Durant-like length who is averaging 20 & 11 on 59% shooting is worth? Name another center in the league who's played better so far this season. And don't say Dwight Howard, cause Bynum's averaging the same blocks per game that Howard is, while slightly edging him in boards per game and averaging 3 more points per game. Yes, Dwight's a better player, but he's also two years older, and is getting $3 mil/yr more. And to be fair, Bynum's a much, much more polished offensive player than Howard is (though obviously Howard's D is light years ahead of Bynum's). But Bynum's almost surely a top 3 center in the league right now, and that's if you include Yao. With all that in mind, is a 3 year contract at an average of $13.7m/yr really more than Bynum could get as a free agent? Keep in mind the length of the contract for someone his age and who is showing his talent, and come on, that's a very reasonable deal for LA (also remember this is the first year of this contract, so you have to compare what he's getting paid now with what he is delivering now, not in the past).

Anti-Laker bias aside though, you really can't compare basketball and baseball when it comes to salaries and salary structure. In baseball there is no salary cap at all, so signing a player to a humongous contract only to have that player do nothing only hurts the owner's wallet, but does not prevent the team from spending more money on a slew of other highly paid players. This is why the Yankees can just outbid everyone every summer if they want to, and all that matters is whether Steinbrenner wants to pick up the check or not.

In basketball, having a large payroll usually carries as much downside as it does upside. This is because each team has limited roster space, and for every player a team signs who is not worth their contact, it means that team is now stuck with that player, and they've now given up not only a roster spot, but money they could spend on someone else. This is why the Knicks have continued to be awful for years and have simply had to wait it out till all their bad contracts are gone. It's also why the Lakers are stuck with someone like Sasha Vujacic until his deal expires after next season, cause there's no way anyone would want him at that price.

Because of all this, and as you alluded to in your late addition to this entry, you really need to look at each team's salary with the prior and upcoming seasons for context. Really young teams like Portland or OKC are cheap now, but that's because they're gonna have to spend through the nose to keep all those players there. Teams like Chicago are intentionally keeping expenses low so they can throw truckloads of money at players like Wade or Bosh. Few teams have shown in the NBA that they can remain competitive without ultimately spending a lot of money. For years the Spurs tried to do this, but after last year it was clear that if they wanted to stay in the title hunt they were gonna have to go way above the luxury tax.

Ultimately I have to call shenanigans on this post a bit, just as a long time reader, because there was so much insisting last year that yes, the Lakers were great, but there would be no way they'd spend enough to keep Odom and Ariza. Well, Ariza thought he was worth more than he was, but clearly the Lakers were more than willing to spend what it would have cost to keep both (as they did keep Odom, and Artest is getting the money they offered Ariza - which is the same amount Ariza took from the Rockets). So look, rather than just say "of course LA is the best team, it's cause they spend the most", the reality is that they're the best because they've spend the most WISELY.

There is a valid argument to be made that being in such a big market gives the Lakers a competitive edge when it comes to what they can spend, but the flip side of that coin is that Dr. Buss has pockets that are nowhere near as deep as most other owners in the NBA. If you really want to know which teams are well put together, look at any roster and what each player is making and ask yourself how many guys on there are not worth their contracts. The fewer guys there are with bad contracts, the better that team is gonna be; and on the Lakers there are really only two or maybe three guys like that: Sasha Vujacic for sure, and probably also either Luke Walton or Adam Morrison.

They should change their name to the Houston Robots.

Matt, I didn't see your comment before I posted my next, so thanks for your gracious response.

Big markets definitely have an advantage in creating stacked teams. It seems easier to bring it up, however, in years in which those teams are doing well.

The Rockets believe they can compete with L.A. That's a second team.

2008-2009 Team Payroll
Cleveland Cavaliers ~ 90.1
Orlando Magic ~ 62.9

By your logic, Cleveland SHOULD have wiped Orlando off the map last year, right?

Look, I'm not saying that paying more money has its advantages - it absolutely does help. But you can still compete and be the best without having the highest payroll. I wouldn't just focus on the Lakers here. LA pays more money to be the best? More money than what, or whom? Last year, they didn't pay more money than 5 other teams. Money is some part of it, but it's not the largest factor.

You disregard the important fact that for a team to have a high payroll, it has to have drafted or traded for a player. The salary cap prevents just willy-nilly signing of free agents, so the fact that LA has the highest payroll and is the best is indicative of the organization's ability to: a) draft players worth large conracts (Bryant and Bynum alone make up a large amount of the cap) and B) make smart moves to trade for players that help (Odom was traded for and able to sign a large contract because he was the Lakers' free agent and Gasol, well, the GM turned Kwame Brown's expiring K into an all-world, literally, PF). The Laker haven't taken on the exorbitant toxic contracts like the Knicks (too many to list) or Utah (two PF's being paid quie a bit and AK-47). Mentioning Portland and Oklahoma is just twisting facts. Next year, when Roy and Aldridge's extensions go into effect, Portland will jump quite a bit. And why should we marvel at Oklahoma? They drafted great players, but all their core players are still on rookie contracts, what's so awe-inspiring about that? That the Thunder found a GM who could draft solid players 20 years later than the Lakers?

Why pick on the Lakers just in the one year they are have the highest payroll? Why hasn't Dallas been the best team? Or the Blazers? They paid like they're the best, as least.

NBA Payrolls 2008-2009 (millions)
New York Knicks ~ 100
Cleveland Cavaliers ~ 90.1
Dallas Mavericks ~ 86
Portland Trailblazers ~ 81.6
Boston Celtics ~ 80.3
Los Angeles Lakers ~ 78.9
Phoenix Suns ~ 74.5
Houston Rockets ~ 73.5

NBA Payrolls 2007-2008 (millions)
Dallas Mavericks ~ 105
New York Knicks ~ 90
Denver Nuggets ~ 80
Cleveland Cavaliers ~ 79
Boston Celtics ~ 75
Portland Trail Blazers ~ 74
Miami Heat ~ 73
LA Lakers ~ 72
Phoenix Suns ~ 71