Nikola Jokic picked apart the Lakers' preseason finale with 17 points and eight assists in 31 minutes, and Denver pulled away 121-106 to close an exhibition slate that won't show up in any record book. The number that actually matters sits on the other side of the ledger: $201.3 million, the price paid for Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler, with almost no draft pick left unencumbered to fix the roster if that bet goes wrong.
Buying the Core
Doncic averaged 33.5 points, 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists last season on 36.6 percent shooting from three, across 64 games after the trade that remade this roster. Reaves was close behind at 23.3 points and 5.5 assists, and Kessler, in a five-game sample, shot 75 percent from three while pulling down 10.8 rebounds a night. Those three alone account for $121.2 million of payroll, part of a $201.3 million total that sits past the $200.4 million luxury-tax line. The results were middling but not bad: a 53-29 record, a 10th-ranked offense, a net rating of 1.5 that placed 14th in the league.
No Picks Left
Spend that much on three players and the cost shows up somewhere else. The 2027 first-round pick carries Memphis protection, the 2027 second is conditional to Brooklyn, the 2029 first is owed outright to Dallas, and the 2029 second to Memphis. Both 2028 picks and the 2030 first are tied up in swaps, and the 2030 second is owed to Brooklyn. There is no clean asset left to attach to a trade without touching a player already on the roster.
What Denver Showed
The finale offered a preview of the stakes. Sandro Mamukelashvili (+6) and Kevon Looney (+5) were the only Lakers who finished in the plus column, while Kessler (-21), Reaves (-20) and Matisse Thybulle (-19) bled points in a loss where Denver's bench, led by Marvin Bagley III's 13 in the fourth, closed it out. Starters outscored the bench only 61-42, not the gap a $201.3 million payroll is built to produce. Whether the spending was worth it still has to be played out, but the Lakers have committed to this core with nothing in reserve if it isn't.
Are the Lakers over the luxury tax this season?
Yes. Their $201.3 million payroll sits past the $200.4 million luxury-tax line, with Doncic, Reaves and Kessler making up $121.2 million of that total.
How many first-round picks do the Lakers control through 2030?
None outright. The 2027 first carries Memphis protection, the 2029 first is owed to Dallas, and both the 2028 and 2030 firsts are tied up in swaps.
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