Kobe Pay Cut? Maybe if He Owned the Team

Now that the Lakers are the 2009 NBA Champions, the talk has begun on how they could repeat their success next year. Two of the major pieces to this championship run, namely Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza, are unrestricted free agents, but both have said that they want to come back to LA, and Odom will probably give the Lakers a hometown discount because he doesn't want to leave LA at this point in his career. The Lakers are already on the books for about $74 million, which is already $3 million above the 2008-2009 salary cap, which is expected to decrease next year with the economic downturn. This means that unless Mitch Kupchak can work some magic and decrease the Lakers' payroll, every dollar they pay Odom and Ariza will actually represent two dollars, with the extra dollar going to the league to be redistributed to teams under the salary cap. Bringing back Odom and Ariza could prove to carry a hefty bill, and some people have proposed the idea of Kobe taking a pay cut to allow the team to sign ... (link)