Lakers say luxury tax 'is not taken into consideration,' but should it be?

The Los Angeles Lakers declined to make any significant moves at the NBA's trade deadline on Thursday. 

They flipped Steve Blake to the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, sure, but talks surrounding Jordan Hill, Pau Gasol and Chris Kaman all failed to bear fruit. While this may not seem all that egregious - not selling off pieces in a tear-down is hardly immoral, quite the opposite really - it does show a bit of hubris on the part of the organization to so willingly ignore their situation.

General manager Mitch Kupchak claimed Friday that it's not a matter of ignoring the situation, such considerations are just not reality for the Lakers:

"With this organization, that kind of relief is not really a big number. The financial aspect of what we do ... is not taken into consideration."
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"The organization is not motivated by saving 'X' amount of dollars. We were more concerned with making a basketball deal."
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"I think the expression would be a 'salary dump.' That's not what this organization will do. If we could get picks or players that we felt good about going forward, then we would have done that. But we had opportunities to go below the threshold and we wouldn't do it."

If our calculations are correct (at worst they are rough approximations), the Lakers currently sit $5.3 million above the luxury tax line. That's a number they could have gotten rid of by dealing Kaman ($3.2 million salary) and Hill ($3.5 million) or moving Gasol ($19.3 million) for cheaper deals or to teams with exceptions to absorb them. Instead, the Lakers stood pat, holding out for a tangible return for each player rather than selling them off for financial relief.

Which, fine, it's the Lakers. They have plenty of money, and selling pieces off for fiscal consideration is a wholly un-Laker-like move. But hanging on to everyone was short-sighted, and here's why:

The now: The Lakers pay $1.50 per $1.00 above the tax for this first $5 million and $1.75 per $1.00 beyond that. That means the $5,289,918 above the tax results in an $8 million luxury tax bill. They also forego receiving a tax payment, which is estimated at just below $2 million for non-taxpayer teams. So it's roughly a $10 million swing this year, plus the actual salary for the players. They are 18-36, by the way.

The future: The collective bargaining agreement charges teams that are considered a "repeater" in the luxury tax a larger tax rate. That $1.50 per $1.00 becomes $2.50, the $1.75 becomes $2.75 and so on. Starting in 2014-15, the repeater tax applies to teams who have paid the luxury tax three seasons in a row, a group the Lakers remain in by paying the tax this season.

Now, it's certainly possible this is all moot next year when the Lakers don't pay the luxury tax. It's very possible that they won't, because their salary cap situation is such that they would have to get very creative to add that much salary. That is, because they don't have much salary committed, it will be difficult to sign players up to the salary cap and then trade for additional pieces to push them into the tax.

But it's possible, if the team gets creative, something the Lakers want to do when it comes to building a roster. Perhaps they have a long-term plan with an eye on the summer of 2015 (hello, Kevin Love) and won't be adding many assets for the 2014-15 season. But at the very least, paying the tax this season has limited their flexibility for next season. Or rather, made the cost of said flexibility much higher.

But it's the Lakers and YOLO.