A forgotten piece of the infamous trade between the Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks, where Luka Doncic was sent to LA and Anthony Davis to the Mavs, was the addition of Maxi Kleber in the deal to help make salaries match. Although injuries have sapped Kleber of the player he once was, the Wurzburg, Germany, native helped give Mans fans another connection to Dirk Nowitzki.
Kleber had a broken foot at the time of the trade, and he only appeared in Game 5 of the playoffs against the Minnesota Timberwolves, playing five minutes. He’s entering the final year of his deal, worth $11 million, and the Lakers may have tried to shop him around recently.
The Lakers will sign Marcus Smart after he agreed to a buyout with the Washington Wizards, but they needed to free up more space to do so. They already waived Shake Milton, but they needed one more move to make it happen. Something they tried to do before waiving Jordan Goodwin on Monday was shop around Dalton Knecht and Maxi Kleber, per Anthony Irwin of “Lakers Lounge.”
“The Lakers have a couple of paths they can head down. One, the Lakers would prefer to complete some type of a consolidation trade, where they send out an expiring contract and Dalton Knecht, and they bring in a player that they are more confident will help them this year and continue on without having to waive Jordan Goodwin.”
Eventually, the Lakers just didn’t want to move any future draft assets to get off of those salaries, and caved in to waive Goodwin. Kleber is the healthiest he’s been in a while, per NBA insider Marc Stein, but he’s suffered a lot of injuries the last few years, and may not be the same player.
