The Los Angeles Lakers caught an enormous break on Tuesday. When the dust settled after the NBA Draft Lottery, the Lakers wound up with the No. 4 overall pick despite having the 11th-worst record in basketball. The jump was only made possible due to the league's updated lottery rules expanding the drawing to cover four teams rather than three. Getting into the top four represents the first major win since the Lakers landed LeBron James, which is appropriate considering their wasted first season with him in the fold. But now the meaningless games now out of the way and the real season has officially begun. It is now May 15th, 2019. The relevant portion of the 2019 offseason will have likely settled by July 15th. That leaves the Lakers two months to shape the future of their franchise through the Draft, trades and free agency.

How they'll do so remains unclear. They aren't favored in the race for any specific free agent. They'll pursue every veteran star that becomes available on the trade market as well, but with so many of their young players facing uncertain futures and with the asset-rich Boston Celtics and New York Knicks looming in the background, they might not have enough to offer for one. There is just no way of predicting at this moment who the Lakers will wind up with when the music stops in early July.

That is even truer now that Magic Johnson is gone and the front office is in such a state of turmoil. If the fraught coaching search taught us anything, it's the we have no idea who will be making decisions for the Lakers in July, what their preferences in players will be or how well they will be able to recruit. Johnson built an entire roster based on uncertainty and then created more of it by leaving.

That uncertainty is based around the mountain of cap space that Johnson sacrificed a season, and potentially his job, to give the team. The Lakers gave out only one-year deals last summer with an eye on paying up for talent this year. Their cap sheet is relatively clean, but that doesn't mean it is simple. In fact, the Lakers have one of the most complex cap situations in all of basketball, and it was only made more difficult with their jump into the top-four of the NBA Draft. There are several scenarios in which they could very easily create max space. There are also scenarios in which they enter free agency above the cap. Where they ultimately fall on that spectrum relies on how they navigate the next few months and the minutia of a salary cap Johnson never fully understood.

So let's dig into where the Lakers stand at the moment, touching on every corner of the team's balance sheet. We'll start with the money that is already committed, move into the money that could be committed, and then dissect five of the most realistic and important potential scenarios for the Lakers as they head into what might be the most important offseason in the franchise's history.

Sources:

Contracts and Cap Holds: Spotrac

Rookie and Minimum Scale: RealGM

Cap Exceptions: HoopsRumors

Cap Rules: Larry Coon's FAQ