​Multiple reports continue to tie Jonathan Kuminga to the Lakers, yet the loudest whispers may not be aimed at the real target. As the offseason heats up with each passing day, insider Jovan Buha says we’ve entered what he calls the “lying season,” when public negotiations and strategic leaks dominate the conversation. According to Buha, the smoke around Kuminga could be masking a path to land PJ Washington. If Buha is correct, the true story isnt about smoke but about salary math.
“It’s a little complicated,” Buha explained on ESPN LA 710 as he outlined the Lakers’ plan for the offseason. “If they follow through with their moves, the last couple of steps would be using the room exception on Collin Sexton, then finalizing the Austin Reaves contract, and then signing Kevon Looney to the minimum. They’ll have 14 players, and they’ll be roughly $11 to $12 million under the first apron.” That cushion is the critical element.
Buha noted that the Lakers are effectively hard-capped at the first apron, meaning they cannot surpass roughly $209 million in payroll. Yet staying just under that threshold provides meaningful flexibility. “Because they’re technically still below the first apron, they could take back salary greater than what they’re sending out,” Buha said. “As long as they’re sending out above $8.8 million, they can take back roughly $9 million more.” That scenario creates a legitimate route to adding PJ Washington.
With Washington’s 2026-27 salary at $19.8 million, Buha pointed out that the Lakers would only need to accumulate around $10 million in outgoing salary to satisfy the league’s matching rules. “Basically, they could structure a deal where it’s, say, Jake LaRavia and Dalton Knecht, or Jared Vanderbilt, although I think that would require more draft capital going out,” Buha suggested. He also floated another possibility: the Mavericks might actually prefer expiring contracts. “They would probably rather someone like Jake or Dalton or even taking back Jaden Hardy, who they previously had, because those players are expirings, whereas Vando has one more year,” Buha noted.
In Buha’s view, the ultimate framework remains financially achievable as long as the Lakers can align the necessary moves with the Mavericks’ preferences. “That’s three seconds (round picks), two seconds plus a first-round swap, whatever it is, the math works.” And this is precisely where Kuminga’s name enters the discussion with a different angle.
Kuminga reportedly expects an annual salary in the range of $22 million to $25 million as he pursues a new home in free agency. In the same interview, Buha labeled the current market as “lying season” and “posturing season,” arguing that teams and agents are strategically leaking information during free agency. He pointed to Kuminga’s stalled negotiations as a clear example, suggesting that the Hawks’ rumored reluctance to absorb Jarred Vanderbilt’s contract without involving another piece could be part of the broader tactic to shape the market. This season’s negotiation dynamics, Buha implies, are less about real interest and more about signaling, leverage, and counter-moves in a deliberately opaque process.
If these theories prove accurate, the true goal behind the circulating Kuminga chatter may be less about a direct swap and more about creating the right financial ecosystem for a larger, multi-part deal that could simultaneously satisfy salary-mair constraints while still delivering the key piece the Lakers want in Washington. In this sense, the so-called smoke might simply be a carefully constructed cover story designed to steer rumors, test the market, and generate leverage as teams and agents maneuver through the “lying season.” Whether Kuminga lands in L.A. or elsewhere, Buha’s emphasis on the delicate math of the cap and the strategic timing of expiring contracts suggests that the actual pathway to the Lakers’ offseason objectives hinges on balancing numbers, not merely chasing the loudest headlines.