How new CBA allows Lakers to bet on Maxwell Lewis

By utilizing a brand new addition to the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Lakers made a low-risk, high-reward bet on Maxwell Lewis’s 3-and-D potential.

• By
  
  Cooper Halpern
  
• on July 27, 2023 8:30 am

In a sharp divergence from how they’ve tended to sign promising non-first round picks to shorter, non-guaranteed contracts, the Lakers have double-dipped on Maxwell Lewis, signing him to a four-year contract, after blowing a bag on the pick they used to select him just a couple of weeks prior.

In past seasons, the Lakers inked Max Christie, Austin Reaves, and Talen Horton-Tucker to two-year contracts as rookies, exposing themselves to the possibilities of losing them or having to overpay for them on the open market a season earlier than they may have had to. While none of those suboptimal potentialities ultimately came to fruition (…yet, with Christie soon to be in the same contractual position Reaves was in last season), the Lakers have avoided the possibility of them arising here by exploiting a form of NBA contract available under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The fresh addition allows teams to offer second-round draft picks three or four-year contracts at or below the league minimum without that number counting against the salary cap or luxury tax until July 31. Also, in the past, signing second-rounders to three-year deals required teams to pull cash from their mid-level exception, something they are no longer required to do with this new exception.

Here, the Lakers were able to spare their MLE for at least one free agent (Gabe Vincent), while locking Lewis into as many as four years for a max total of just over $7 million. Further benefitting the Lakers’ flexibility, if Lewis doesn’t pan out, they can cut him in his third season and pay him only $100,000, or refuse to pick up the team option on his fourth season.

In terms of financial stability, the deal is an even bigger win for the Lakers. Instead of worrying about having to pay him by the time he rounds into a complete NBA contributor, the Lakers have secured the possibility of Lewis growing into a dirt-cheap rotation player for the latter half of his deal. Presumably, the Lakers are betting on Lewis’s potential — and given his low cost, the glimpses of upside he’s displayed during his first handful of games as a professional, and the scarcity of big wings with legit scoring chops and defensive versatility — the team is right to do so.

While he looked a bit spooked by the bright lights during the California Classic and struggled to create as a primary option after the team lost their top dog in Max Christie for the final two games in Vegas, Lewis showed flashes of real promise during the Lakers’ middle stretch of the…