OK, so if we were going to try to trade for both LaVine and Caruso, how dow we do it, and where does it leave us?
LaVine is at $43,031,940
Caruso is at $9,890,000
To trade for both together ($52,921,940) would require that we send out $42,137,552. Since we are assuming that both Barnes ($18,000,000) and Huerter ($16,830,357) are obviously gone in this scenario, our initial outlay here would be $34,830,357. This leaves us $7,307,195 short. To reach that level, we'd have to add in Keegan (please no) or Lyles (not ideal) or pick and choose one player from Column A (Sasha/Davion/Duarte) AND one player from Column B (Keon/Colby). So, for instance, Duarte+Colby works.
BUT
The smarter way would be to break it down into two separate deals, one for LaVine and one for Caruso. For the LaVine deal we would have to send out $34,225,552. Barnes+Huerter covers that by several hundred thousand dollars. For the Caruso deal we would have to send out $4,820,000, which would mean any one of the players from Column A above would work and we don't have to send Colby. So let's call it Duarte (Davion is looking too valuable, though perhaps we could include him in lieu of picks; Sasha probably wants out but as we are trading to get smaller here we might suddenly have playing time for him).
OK, so we're sending out Barnes/Huerter/Duarte ($40,724,125) for LaVine and Caruso ($52,921,940) for a net gain of $12,198,815 in salary. Importantly, because of the expanded trade exception we used here, we are hard-capped at the apron for '24-'25. That apron is at $178,655,000. Our team salary with our new players is $163,730,839 for 10 players. We will have to add #13 ($4,950,480) if we keep it, and two more players to fill out the 13-man. Barring any moves to significantly reduce salary we will only have a bit under $15M total to get that all done. Monk is basically gone under this scenario.
OK, that said, let's look at the 10 players we'd have under contract, arranged as best as can be:
Fox/Davion
Caruso/Keon
LaVine/Colby
Keegan/Sasha
Domas/Lyles
We'll presumably have Slawson, Ford, and likely #45 on two-way deals.
This team is pretty small. If you're asking me, the #13 pick here would need to go to a PF/C who is ready to play. As would be no surprise to those who have paid attention to my thoughts on this draft, for me that player would be Edey, who we would ask to step directly into the backup 5 role and push Lyles up into the backup 4, freeing us up to try to trade Sasha if he still wants out. I really can't see us moving Lyles up into the starting 4, and bumping Keegan and LaVine up to the 3/2 because that leaves a bench with Davion, Caruso, and Keon - completely wasting all of that perimeter defense by having large stretches with none of it on the floor.