Los Angeles Lakers: 5 potential free agency targets in 2018

3. Julius Randle

The only Lakers player who is a restricted free agent, Julius Randle might find himself in the most peculiar situation of them all.

While there are several teams with enough cap space to sign Randle to a lucrative deal, including the Lakers, most of those teams will be chasing the superstar free agents. It may very well be that Randle does’t receive an offer until LeBron James, Paul George, Cousins and others make their decisions.

There are also several other restricted free agents like Clint Capela and Aaron Gordon who might garner more attention than Randle.

One team that has reportedly shown interest is the Mavericks, in large part because Randle is a Dallas native and the Mavs have a ton of cap space. If they acquire Jordan, however, or end up signing Cousins, Randle could find himself without any huge offers.

No. 30 is coming off the best season of his career, and at only 23 years of age, he still has so much room to grow. Ideally, the Lakers would want to keep him, but it all depends on his market value and their other pursuits. It’s easy to imagine them matching an offer he signs where the yearly base value is around $10-15 million. If his contract exceeds $20 million a year though, the Lakers will probably choose to save that money and spend it elsewhere.