Why the Lakers are being forced into a tough situation with Trey Jemison

The active-game limit for two-way players is putting the Lakers in a tough spot with Trey Jemison.

Trey Jemison has been a pleasant surprise for the Lakers since signing a two-way contract in mid-January, but he’s been inactive for their past four games due to illness. While it’s unfortunate not to have the big man available, it always has briefly deferred a potentially difficult decision the Lakers are going to have to make.

“Trey Jemison has seven games remaining of two-way eligibility before the Lakers have to make a decision,” Jovan Buha of The Athletic said on his podcast Sunday (around the 53-minute mark). “[Head coach] JJ [Redick] acknowledged that’s a factor that the Lakers are trying to navigate right now.

Two-way players can be on the active roster for only 50 games per season. Jemison has only been active for 31 games this year, but if someone signs a two-way midway through the season, their active-game limit gets prorated based on how much time is left in the year.

Jemison has played in 15 games with the Lakers this season, averaging 3.1 points, 2.9 rebounds and 0.5 blocks in 11.4 minutes per game. Given the state of the Lakers’ center rotation in the wake of the rescinded Mark Williams trade — aka, bleak AF aside from Jaxson Hayes — the Lakers could use all of the frontcourt help they could get.

Before Monday’s win over the San Antonio Spurs, Redick acknowledged the juggling act that the Lakers have to play with Jemison over the final month of the regular season.

“It’s complicated because he’s really earned the trust of the coaching staff, but this is, unfortunately, the nature of the two-way contracts and having a full roster,” Redick said. “It’s something…we’re just going to manage. I think with guys being out, we can’t really afford to have [our two-way centers] out of the rotation right now and then we’ll see as we get healthy.”

Jemison won’t be eligible to play in the postseason unless the Lakers convert him from a two-way deal to a standard contract between now and the final day of the regular season. They figure to eventually do so — Alex Len ain’t it, chief — but their proximity to the second apron likely explains why they haven’t yet.

After signing Len to a rest-of-season contract, the Lakers are roughly $894,000 below the second apron. Trading for Luka Dončić hard-capped them at the second apron, which means they aren’t allowed to exceed that threshold at any point between now and June 30. Luckily, rest-of-season contracts also prorate based on how many days are left in the regular season.

If the Lakers were to convert Jemison from a two-way deal to a standard contract Wednesday, it would cost roughly $312,000. They’d have enough wiggle room under the second apron to convert both Jemison and Jordan Goodwin (while presumably waiving Len and Cam Reddish), although they likely don’t want to get stuck in the same situation that the Dallas Mavericks currently find themselves in. The Mavericks are only $51,000 below their first-apron hard cap, which means they can’t sign anyone else — not even to a 10-day contract — until April 10.

If the Lakers wait to convert either Jemison or Goodwin, they’d cost only $228,000 as of March 26. They could convert both and still have more than $400,000 of wiggle room under the second apron, which would give them the flexibility to make a third rest-of-season signing if needed.

For now, the Lakers figure to continue burning through Jemison’s remaining games of two-way eligibility before converting him to a standard deal. Steering clear of hard-cap issues — especially given Dallas’ current experience — should be front of mind. After all, “do the exact opposite of what Nico Harrison did over the past six weeks” seems to be a winning strategy.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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