The Los Angeles Lakers were able to turn a series of cost-saving trades into the acquisitions of Steve Nash, Jordan Hill, Robert Sacre and Darius Morris.

The Lakers had traded Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher and Sasha Vujacic in recent years and months.

Mitch Kupchak admitted that financial concerns have become a bigger factor in how the Lakers evaluate their decisions, especially as more punitive luxury tax penalties arrive for the 13-14 NBA season.

"Maybe it's more of a concern for us than it is for a lot of other teams right now," Kupchak said.

The Lakers saved $17.9 million in salary and luxury taxes, along with a traded player exception used to acquire Nash when they dealt Odom to the Mavericks last December.

"We weren't going to do something just to do something in terms of taking back something that maybe we didn't want," Kupchak said. "But our feeling was, if we can create an exception and get a [draft] pick that would give us the flexibility that we needed going forward [then we would make the trade], and Dallas stepped up."