It seems that many NBA teams are simply playing out the string in the current NBA season, insuring they have enough payroll room to be big players in the 2010 free agent market. The same cannot be said of the Los Angeles Lakers, who have the highest payroll in the NBA and are looking to win with what they got. Not only are they trying to win for today, but have much of their talent locked in for the future.
How high is high? Well the Lakers payroll today is 91.3 million dollars. If that is the number on the final day of the season they will woe the NBA 21.4 million dollars in Luxury Tax bringing the total bill to 112.7 million dollars and that does not include the 12 million they are paying Head Coach Phil Jackson.
Many will think that is outrageous, but the Lakers are in a unique position. Given their home market they have to spend big, to remain relevant. California Sports Fans are pretty fickle by nature, and will only spend money to see a legitimate contender.
Lakers ownership feels that they have to field the best team possible, to insure strong ticket sales. A quick look at the 2009 attendance report seems to back them up. While the Lakers are currently sixth in NBA attendance averaging 18,997 fans per home game, they have sold nearly 100% of their current season ticket inventory.
If they continue to do that, keep on winning, and have another deep playoff run it seems highly likely that they will turn a profit for the current year, even though they raised their payroll from 86 million to the 91.3 million mark.
A good portion of that increase is tied up in the new contract from Andrew Bynum, whose salary jumped nearly 10 million dollars from last year. A quick look at how the Lakers payroll is broken down:
• Kobe Bryant- 23 million
• Paul Gasol- 16.5 million
• Andrew Bynum- 12.5 million
• Lamar Odom- 7.8 million
• Ron Artest 5.9 million
• Derek Fisher- 5 million
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