Yesterday the Lakers claimed former-Rockets center Tarik Black off
of waivers, giving them yet another unproven big man with some potential.
Black was waived by Houston in order to make room for the incoming Josh
Smith. The Lakers had to waive swingman Xavier Henry to add Black.
Henry is recovering from a torn achilles and is out for the season.
It's not exactly a headline-grabbing move,
even though Black did start for the Rockets for a number of games while Dwight Howard
was out and has shows the ability to be an excellent rebounder. However, the true genius of adding Black to the roster is in the
details of his contract.
Black is on an extremely team-friendly
deal, making just $507,336 this season. His contract goes up next year to
$845,059, which is still hardly a blip on the radar in the NBA world.
After the 2015-2016 season the Lakers can make him a restricted free
agent with a qualifying offer of $1.2 million.
Now here's beauty part: his contract is
also fully unguaranteed. As
a result Black can be waived at any time and his contract instantly comes off
the books. This gives the
Lakers tons of flexibility that can allow them to make any number of moves this
year and next.
For example, let's say Black pans out and
proves to be a solid NBA backup and someone the Lakers would like to
develop. They would then
have a plethora of bigs to put on the trade market, including Jordan Hill,
Robert Sacre, Ed Davis, and Ryan Kelly, each with their own strengths that may
appeal to certain teams.
On the flip side if Black shows that he
just isn't an NBA-caliber player at this point (which is possible, his PER is
actually slightly worse than Sacre's), the Lakers can simply waive him. It's unlikely they make such a move
this season, but doing so over the summer could free up a little extra cap
space. They could also look
to trade Black himself to a team looking to gain cap room in exchange for a 2nd
rounder or as part of a larger deal.
The bottom line is that Tarik Black is a
very low-risk investment on the part of the Lakers. If he turns out to be a solid addition
then Mitch Kupchak will look like a genius, if not he can be cut with no harm
done. You don't win titles
with moves like this one, but every little bit helps.
