Lakers: Rivals Project Wide Range Of Salaries For 2023 Free Agent D'Angelo Russell
Los Angeles Lakers starting point guard D'Angelo Russell has already proven himself to be a pretty significant upgrade over the player for whom he was traded, now-LA Clippers point guard Russell Westbrook.
Across his three full healthy games for Los Angeles (he had to depart Thursday's contest against the Warriors in the first quarter with an ankle sprain and hasn't played since), Russell has averaged 17.3 points on .450/.375/.769 shooting splits, 5.7 assists, and 3.3 rebounds.
Per Sean Deveney of Heavy.com, estimates vary wildly for exactly what Russell, an unrestricted free agent this summer, could fetch on the open market. He's currently in the last season of the four-year, $117 million maximum-salaried deal he inked in a sign-and-trade with the Golden State Warriors way back in 2019.
A rival general manager informs Deveney that, at minimum, Russell could fetch a three-year, $70 million deal this year. Another opposing front office executive suggested that Russell would make an “Anfernee Simons kind of deal,” i.e. something in the range of four years for $100 million.
“It will land between that and four years, $120 million, you can see that,” the executive told Deveney. “Russell could finish out strong and make it $30 million-a-year-or-bust. But that is hard to justify that kind of money, he does not defend and isn’t a great shooter.”
Is Russell worth quite that much? Perhaps not to teams without the top-level talent LA has, but on this particular Lakers roster, his fit makes a ton of sense. Of course, there are several other big-money free agent point guards who will or could become available this summer, including James Harden, Kyrie Irving, and Fred VanVleet. Perhaps LA will keep its coffers clean until it sees how the market shakes out for the others.
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