Rajon Rondo, LA Clippers. (Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
The Memphis Grizzlies are about to pay a fourth player to go play for the Los Angeles Lakers.
For many former star players to make their way to the Los Angeles Lakers, they must take a brief connecting flight with the Memphis Grizzlies first.
While Memphis is a major logistics hub with FedEx being headquartered there and all, Rajon Rondo is about to be the fourth player to join the Lakers by way of Memphis without hardly, if at all, playing for them. Since the 2019-20 NBA season, Avery Bradley, Dwight Howard and Dion Waiters have all made a brief stop in Memphis before getting to Los Angeles. Rondo makes four.
The weirdest part in all of this is Memphis is not a bottom-feeding team; they are playoff-caliber.
Memphis Grizzlies will buy out anyone to go play for the Los Angeles Lakers
If we are looking at the pay discrepancies between what Memphis is paying these four players and what Los Angeles will, the Grizzlies are eating roughly $34.5 million in salary with these buyouts, while Los Angeles is only paying around $10.4 million. While it makes sense for Los Angeles to have a buyout buddy, what is there to be gained by Memphis is taking on all this dead money?
This may be all about adding an asset down the line in a trade that greatly helps the other party, but only helps Memphis a tad. Given that Memphis is a small market, accumulating draft capital is probably the best way to go when it comes towards team building. As long as LeBron James is still playing in Los Angeles, star players will want to join up with him on their quest to go get a ring.
So if the Lakers ever want to add a veteran piece, he must come through Memphis like FedEx.