How the Lakers can set the right price for Julius Randle

It’s looking more like the Lakers are going to need to re-sign Julius Randle this summer and not let him walk — but at what price?

Trying to figure out the right price for restricted free agents similar to Julius Randle won’t be an easy task for the Lakers. Knowing how they’ve handled free agency over the last several summers, we have to collectively hold our breath in hopes that they don’t completely flunk with new management in place.

Paul George and LeBron James are the more obvious targets, but if things don’t go smooth from the get-go with either of them, the Lakers will have to ask themselves how long they can wait before locking up Julius Randle.

And it won’t be a fun question to ask if they wait even a day too long.

There’s no doubt that Julius Randle has played his cards right, especially if he can stay consistent throughout the second half of the season. Thanks to his play as of late, there will be a good number of teams interested in his services, perhaps none more persistent than teams like the Utah Jazz or Dallas Mavericks.

The good thing for the Lakers when it comes to handling Randle is that if he’s given an offer sheet by another team, they’ll have an opportunity to match that offer before anything is finalized. If you were to take the attitude from the Randle we saw in the first half of the season, the more immediate and easy to make conclusion would be that he has no problem leaving Los Angeles for a better pay day.

But he’s making a strong case for the Lakers to want to keep him around, and he’s earned the right to be wanted which it seems he’s been trying to prove since he entered the league. With that being said, here are the three ways that the Lakers can fairly evaluate the right offer to make for Julius Randle this summer.