Based on everything I've read/heard from Dave McMenamin:

Finalized Date:

Lakers were "quite aware" that timing of the trade date is important.

Trade has only been reported, not made official. An agreement can be made but not legally documented.

Lakers and Pelicans likely have some sort of agreement about the finalized date depending on circumstances of whether the Pelians keep the pick or whether the Lakers can land a top star.

Teams can always re-negotiate and amend the date by including extra sweeteners to the Pelicans or 3rd team that comes into the picture. Griffin has worked with amended agreement dates before when trading Andrew Wiggins for Kevin Love.


Trade Kicker:

Rich Paul is representing the best interest of his client so he will put out that his client will not waive his trade kicker.

If Lakers can land a top star, they can go to Rich Paul and Anthony Davis and ask them if they are amicable to waiving the trade kicker. Cases in the past like Kyrie Irving waived his trade kicker to help the trade to get him to Boston.


Cap Space:

The Lakers have 2 ways of thinking:

- First one is to clear as much cap space as possible and get the full max.

- Second one is they do not need to get the full, full max since all the players they are targeting (Kawhi, Kyre, Kemba, Butler) do not have 10 years experience and they may be open to looking for a 2+1 deal and sacrificing about $4 million per year for the first 2 years then re-negotiating after they hit their 10 year tenure where they can make more.