Let’s face it, when it comes to the Los Angeles Lakers, money is no object. 
Need proof? Their current team payroll is $91,311,749 which puts them tops in that department in the NBA.
But when you swing a cable deal to the tune of $5 billion, I am sure you will be OK pumping out that kind of cash and paying insane luxury tax penalties on high-end players’ contracts.
According to the ocregister.com, the Lakers just inked a $5 billion new cable deal with Time Warner Cable.
But, um, how much are the Lakers – all by themselves – getting from Time Warner Cable for its new regional sports networks?
$5 billion.
That $5 billion is over 25 years – or it’ll be merely $4 billion over 20 years if the future option isn’t exercised. It has been widely and wrongly reported as less.
So much for the whole parity angle during these current CBA negotiations huh?
So here we are, Buss has scored himself buckets of dough to continue signing the best players and free agents (Dwight Howard anyone?) to an already stacked team and can just scoff at those supposedly harsh penalties set in the upcoming CBA.
And what about other mid-to-small market teams? You think the Bobcats, Grizzlies or Bucks can compete with this or similar deals such as New York with their MSG Network? No.
Coveted free agents in the future will look to the Lakers and see a team willing to pay out huge stacks of cash and not have a care about salary-cap penalties. Which will do wonders for Los Angeles once the Kobe Bryant-era is over and rebuilding begins.
In the end, this just shows you how the Lakers will always compete and David Stern’s “dream” of parity might be just that, a dream.
