Summary

After early success in Phoenix and Washington, Morris seemed to have fallen off, being bought out twice in a two year span - once by the Pelicans after being traded from Washington, and once by the Pistons. However, after joining the Lakers, Morris has revived his career and has shown to be a legitimate rotation player for a championship level team. Morris is not a great defender, but he's big enough to hold his own against some of the bigger wings in the NBA.

 

The Lakers have even used him as a backup center in certain units. He's not a knockdown shooter, but he's good enough to be a threat from beyond the arc, allowing the Lakers to have plenty of spacing when they go with a small unit with Morris at center. His versatility to play either big position should cause Morris to get some interest as a free agent this summer.

 

Cap Considerations

Morris will be an unrestricted free agent with a $1.7 million cap hold and Early Bird rights. Since the Lakers will be operating over the salary cap, they will retain Morris's Early Bird rights until he is re-signed or signs elsewhere. The Lakers could offer Morris a starting salary of up to 5% more than the average salary (likely around $10 million) using the Early Bird exception, which should be more than enough should they wish to bring him back.

 

Other teams will have multiple ways to sign Morris as even teams without cap space could possibly use either of the Non-Taxpayer MLE, Taxpayer MLE, or possibly even the Room MLE to sign him.