- By buying out Luol Deng‘s contract and using the stretch provision, the Lakers gave themselves a chance to offer Kevin Durant a max salary in free agency, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders examines. The Lakers now project to have $38.2MM in cap space, which would be just enough to afford Durant, Pincus continues. If they can’t land Durant, they’ll certainly have enough to bring in another All-Star level talent. Other high-level potential free agents, including Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, DeMarcus Cousins, Jimmy Butler, Walker and Kyrie Irving, could command a first-year salary of $33MM, leaving the Lakers with another $5MM to spend in other ways, Pincus adds.
Today’s buyout agreement with Luol Deng will provide financial benefits for the Lakers over the next two seasons. Deng agreed to forgo $7.5MM of the $36.8MM left on his contract, with 48.9% of that coming from his 2018/19 salary and the other 51.1% from his 2019/20 figure, tweets salary cap expert Larry Coon.
The reduction will drop L.A.’s commitment to Deng for the upcoming season from $18MM to about $14.3MM, adds cap expert Albert Nahmad (Twitter link). The Lakers were projected to be $4.6MM above the cap before the buyout, so the extra $3.7MM won’t allow them to sign anyone, but it gives them an easier path if they decide to operate below the cap at some point during the season.
L.A. will stretch the final season of Deng’s contract over three years, which works out to a $4.99MM cap hit annually from 2019/20 through 2021/22, posts Bobby Marks on ESPN Now. He notes that the figure would have been closer to $6.3MM a year if the Lakers had stretched Deng’s contract without the buyout. The team projects to have $36.97M in cap space next summer, enough to offer a maximum contract, according to Coon (Twitter link).
There’s more Deng-related news to pass along:
- Deng was frustrated about being benched for virtually all of last season and had no desire to go through that experience again, tweets Tania Ganguli of The Los Angeles Times. Deng played 13 minutes on opening night and wasn’t used again for the rest of the season, despite being fully healthy. Comments from Lakers officials at the end of last season indicated they were willing to keep Deng on the roster, which is what motivated him to accept the buyout, Ganguli adds (Twitter link).
- Lakers GM Rob Pelinka issued a statement of gratitude after Deng’s release became official this afternoon, relays Chris Haynes of ESPN. “We want to thank Luol for his time with the Lakers,” Pelinka said. “We made this move to further our future salary cap and roster flexibility, as we continue to build this Lakers team according to our current overall vision.”
- The Lakers don’t have any immediate plans for filling Deng’s roster spot, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne (Twitter link). L.A. currently has 14 players with guaranteed contracts, along with non-guaranteed minimum deals for Jonathan Williams, Jeffrey Carroll and Joel Berry
- The Timberwolves will be among the teams interested in Deng once he clears waivers, tweets Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. Coach/executive Tom Thibodeau has already gathered several of his former Bulls players in Minnesota.
2:09pm: Deng gave back $7.5MM on the $36.8MM left on his contract, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne (Twitter link). By using the waive-and-stretch provision, the Lakers will have approximately $38MM in salary cap space next summer.
1:12pm: The team has waived Deng, according to the team’s Twitter feed.
10:25am: The Lakers and forward Luol Deng have agreed to a buyout that will make the veteran a free agent, Shams Charania of The Athletic was first to report. Deng will be waived and stretched, which creates financial flexibility for Los Angeles.
Before reaching a buyout with Deng, the Lakers were projected to have $25MM in cap room for next season. However, by completing this move with Deng, that figure is expected to increase to about $36-38MM, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks. That creates room for a max contract next offseason for Los Angeles.
Deng, 33, had two years and $36.8MM left on the four-year, $72MM deal that he originally signed during the summer of 2016. Since inking that contract with the Lakers, Deng never settled into the team’s rotation, ultimately becoming an expensive bench player.
Per ESPN’s Chris Haynes, Deng is expected to field interest from several contending teams in free agency.
The former two-time All-Star played in 56 games his first year with the Lakers in 2016/17, averaging a career-low 7.6 PPG and 5.3 RPG. The Lakers sat Deng late in the season to evaluate its younger players, a role Deng assumed for all of the 2017/18 campaign.
Despite being healthy and able to play, Deng appeared in just one game this past season. The Lakers even made it publicly clear that they wanted to rid themselves of the albatross contract after the trade deadline in February.
“We wish, huh?” Johnson said with a laugh about whether or not the team was close to trading Deng (via The Orange County Register). “No, that didn’t happen. You want to make a move for us?”
While Deng was commended for his professionalism by Lakers brass, he insisted that his skills can still be effective on the right team. Speaking to K.C. Johnson of The Chicago Tribune in January, Deng said he can be an effective player on the court.
“That’s no question,” Deng said. “I’m not playing because I can’t play. If we’re going to go there, it is what it is. But I know I can play.”
In 14 NBA seasons, Deng wields career averages of 15.0 PPG, 6.1 RPG and 2.3 APG between the Bulls, Cavaliers, Heat and Lakers.
When LeBron James joined the Lakers, several other seasoned veterans followed suit. While Los Angeles was not able to lure another high-priced free agent alongside James, the team did sign experienced players who all fill specific roles.
Lance Stephenson has left the Pacers again, but just like last time it may not be forever, writes Dana Benbow for The Indianapolis Star. Stephenson, who signed a one-year deal with the Lakers this summer, was asked about a possible return during a party he threw Wednesday to say goodbye to Indianapolis.
“Oh, of course. This is home. Of course,” he responded. “I would always want to come back here.”
Stephenson was among Indiana’s most productive reserves last season, appearing in all 82 games and posting a 9.2/5.2/2.9 line. His previous stints with other teams — the Hornets, Clippers, Grizzlies, Pelicans and Timberwolves — produced mostly disappointing results.
“We stayed in constant communication with him,” team president Kevin Pritchard said. “At the end of the day, Lance gave us some great years. We love Lance. We love Lance on the court, we love Lance off the court.”
There’s more from the Central Division:
- Mike Budenholzer may be having “buyer’s remorse” over taking the Bucks‘ head coaching job after the loss of free agent Jabari Parker, suggests Gery Woelfel of WoelfelsPressBox in his latest podcast. He adds that the entire organization was counting on Parker to stay and never expected him to get an offer in the $20MM range like the Bulls gave him.
- The Bucks are still hoping to make a deal before the season starts, Woelfel adds in the same discussion. He names John Henson, Malcolm Brogdon and Tony Snell as the players most likely to go, but says Eric Bledsoe has also been mentioned as a trade candidate.
- Ed Stefanski has made a lot of progress in his first 100 days as a senior advisor to the Pistons, notes Chris Schwegler of NBA.com. The most significant moves were the hiring of reigning Coach of the Year Dwane Casey, adding Khyri Thomas and Bruce Brown through the draft and signing free agents Glenn Robinson III, Jose Calderon and Zaza Pachulia.
- Blake Griffin is looking healthy during his summer workouts at UCLA, relays Kurt Helin of NBC Sports. A knee injury limited Griffin to 58 games last year between the Clippers and Pistons, and he hasn’t played more than 67 in a season since 2013/14.
As of this coming Saturday, teams waiving a player can no longer stretch that player’s 2018/19 cap hit — only the player’s future cap charges can be stretched.
That’s an item of interest for a player like Luol Deng, who has two years and $36.81MM left on his contract with the Lakers. If he were stretched today, Deng would count against the team’s cap for $7.362MM over each of the next five years. Waiving and stretching him on Saturday would leave his 2018/19 cap hit as is, creating $6.27MM annual cap charges for the following three seasons.
[RELATED: Hoops Rumors Glossary: Stretch Provision]
In an in-depth and interesting piece for GiveMeSport.com, cap expert Mark Deeks argues that, as of Saturday, the time is right for the Lakers to make a move involving Deng. The Lakers want to create as much cap room as possible for the 2019 offseason and trading Deng in a salary-dump deal is their best path to maximizing that cap space, but Deeks doesn’t view that as a realistic or desirable option. Any deal that clears Deng’s salary from the Lakers’ books would cost the team at least a first-round pick, and likely more than that, given how unappealing the contract is.
In Deeks’ view, the Lakers’ best bet is to push for a buyout sometime after September 1. Deng has spoken about wanting the opportunity to play this coming season, and if he doesn’t think he’ll get the chance to get back on the court in Los Angeles, he could be open to giving back a portion of his salary to play elsewhere. Deng won’t surrender a huge chunk of the money owed to him, but Deeks believes a buyout in the $5MM range isn’t unrealistic — after all, the veteran forward could essentially make that money back by signing minimum-salary contracts over the next two seasons.
In that scenario, the Lakers would apply a pro-rated portion of the buyout to each of Deng’s remaining seasons, reducing his cap hit for 2019/20, which in turn would reduce the annual cap charges created by stretching him.
The Lakers are under no pressure to do anything with Deng right now. Stretching Deng on September 1 and doing so next July would have the same impact on the team’s cap. So it may be in the team’s best interests to be patient, exploring the trade market at the deadline and again next summer to see if any takers are out there — if not, the club could simply waive and stretch Deng in 10 months.
Still, Deeks argues that the Lakers’ leverage in buyout talks won’t improve over the course of the year, since allowing Deng to reach free agency now would give him the chance to catch on with a new team for the 2018/19 season. In other words, this may be the club’s best chance to reduce Deng’s stretched cap hits as much as possible.
Additionally, even if the Lakers are able to eventually find a trade involving Deng, they’ll have to give up young players and/or picks to make it happen, and Deeks doesn’t believe surrendering those assets would be worth creating a little extra cap room — even if that extra cap room helps open up a 35% maximum-salary slot.
What do you think? Should the Lakers start working on a Deng buyout now and try to resolve the situation soon? Or does it make sense to hang onto him until at least next summer in order to maximize their potential options?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in on Deng and the Lakers.
- Having signed with Fenerbahce earlier this summer, former Lakers point guard Tyler Ennis is excited about joining the Turkish powerhouse, as Antonis Stroggylakis of Eurohoops.net relays. “I started to got messages from our fans before I signed my contract,” Ennis told FB TV. “That was a huge support for me in that process. I can’t wait to get on the court and show them what I got.”
- Jamal Murray (Nuggets), Brandon Ingram (Lakers), and Jaylen Brown (Celtics) are among the potential breakout players named by Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders in an article on players who could take a third-year leap.
- A number of star players can hit free agency in 2019 and there should be plenty of teams with cap room available. Danny Leroux of The Athletic suggests that another interesting factor related to 2019’s free agent period involves all the star players who are already on long-term contracts. A team like the Lakers, for instance, with LeBron James locked up through at least 2021, will be able to sell potential targets on “a finished product rather than patience and possibility,” Leroux writes.
The Lakers can improve their 3-point shooting in a variety of ways during the upcoming season, as Mark Trudell of the Lakers’ website details. While the Lakers didn’t add quality shooters in free agency to compliment LeBron James, they have some other options who can help them greatly improve upon their second-to-last showing from long range, Trudell continues. Brandon Ingram, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Josh Hart and Kyle Kuzma shot 38.5% or better on threes after the All-Star break last season, Trudell notes. Rookies Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk and Moe Wagner can help in that area, and the playmaking of James and Rajon Rondo can also facilitate more open looks from deep, Trudell adds.
Jimmy Butler is “open to the idea” of leaving the Timberwolves to join LeBron James and the Lakers, a source close to Butler told Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report.
While that’s not as definitive as Kawhi Leonard‘s well-known desire to play in Los Angeles — though the Raptors are already taking measures to change his mind — it’s certainly another intriguing avenue for the Lakers to pursue.
Butler can opt out of the final year of his contract and leave $19.84MM on the table to become an unrestricted free agent next summer and it’s generally assumed he’ll do that.
Butler would fit the bill of a second star to take pressure off of James. He’s a tough, defensive-minded player who has averaged 20 or more points for four consecutive seasons. He’s not a superior 3-point shooter but he’ll fill the stat sheet and he’s still got plenty of good years ahead of him if he avoids a major injury. He doesn’t turn 30 until next September.
Butler formally turned down a contract extension offer of four years and more than $100MM this summer. That’s as much as Minnesota could offer but Butler can command much more on the open market.
He would be eligible for a new five-year contract worth nearly $190MM with the Wolves, based on a $109MM cap projection for 2019/20. A four-year deal with the Lakers or another team could be worth up to $140MM.
There have been reports of tension among the Wolves’ three stars – Butler, Andrew Wiggins, and Karl-Anthony Towns – and if the team gets off to a disappointing start, he could be dealt before the February trade deadline.
Ironically, there have also been rumblings that Butler and Kyrie Irving might join the same team in free agency. If that came to fruition, Butler would be teaming up with the star player who wanted to get away from James last summer.
Paul George says the Lakers were angry that he refused to meet with them before re-signing with the Thunder, but adds that his mind was already made up. Appearing on the Short Story Long podcast, George contends there were hard feelings from team president Magic Johnson and the L.A. organization about his decision.
“I didn’t give Magic [Johnson] a meeting, which I understand,” George said. “But at that point, I knew I wanted to give it another shot [in Oklahoma City]. I didn’t want to prolong it and waste people’s time.”
A native of the Los Angeles area, George had once been considered very likely to join the Lakers when he hit free agency. The reason he was traded to the Thunder last summer is that his agent informed Pacers management that he had no plans to re-sign in Indiana.
However, George enjoyed his experience in OKC, even though the team was ousted from the playoffs in the first round. He was the first big-name free agent to announce his decision this year, making it official shortly after midnight Eastern time on July 1 at a party thrown by teammate Russell Westbrook.
The Thunder gave George a four-year deal worth $137MM with a player option for the final season. He played 79 games in his first season in Oklahoma City, posting a 21.9/5.7/3.3 line.
“Coming down to free agency, I didn’t want to waste any time,” George added. “I wanted to give it another shot. I gave them one year. We played well against the best teams. I wanted to give it a real shot.”