LA Lakers to lay off certain employees on July 1 after presumed lockout starts

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/24/sports/la-sp-lakers-fyi-20110425

Assistant coaches, training staff members will all be shown the door assuming nothing happens. No word on ticket salesmen/sponsorship folks...

Of all the teams in the NBA, I don't see why the Lakers should be making these pre-emptive moves. The Lakers are a team that is doing better than most teams financially, they can definitely weather through a lack of a 2011-2012 season. Not to mention, the Lakers are probably the team that stands to lose the most when it comes to its on-court product if the new CBA turns out to be closer to the way Ted Leonsis wants it. At least their profits will explode with a hard cap. While I can see Memphis, or Sacramento doing this, this is absurd from the Lakers...

Are you sure you read the same article as me?

It's basically the trainers... who are on seasonal contracts... And it says nothing about the currant coaching staff other than that they all have one-year contracts. Those are Phil's guys. It's pretty common to have an actual coach in place who picks his own staff. After this year the Laker will no longer have a coach that is paid 12+million a season.

If Brian Shaw takes over, whose to say he keeps them or not. Who ever they bring in as a coach isn't going to just keep the whole staff because of their time spent with the organization.

The Lakers have the highest payroll in the NBA at 95.3 Million. Next is Orlando and Dallas... both of those teams have no state income tax coincidentally. After them, Boston got rid of Perkins, because they couldn't give him the contract he was looking for. The Nuggets dumped Carmelo, but sent Billups to cut it's payroll. It goes on and on. Most teams are looking for relief.

"they can definitely weather through a lack of a 2011-2012 season." With what? The Lakers are a tenant and rent from Staples Center. Not own it. Concerts, WWE, Boxing, live events and so forth go to Staples Inc and it's partners solely.

I think you're blowing it out of proportion a bit, as it mentions in the article that it's not the only team that is looking at trimming expenses.

So why is it absurd again? Just because it's the Lakers?

Lame.

What Nick said.

I think it's absurd that the Lakers are making these moves now by not retaining people a good couple months before this labor deal is up and making it public. Other teams haven't been as public about it yet if they have made these moves. I'll concede that I didn't read the article very meticulously, so I rushed to judgment on some things.

I don't know completely about the arrangement the Lakers have with the Staples Center, but AEG or Anschutz has some stake in the Lakers too. My belief is that whatever rent has to be paid still has to be paid. The Clippers fortunately don't have to pay much rent as compared with a team payroll, about $1.5 million/year, but that also probably means they don't get as much concession revenues, etc.