Last summer Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak signed Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov to big contracts with the hope that they would help the young Lakers reach the playoffs after a three-year absence. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.
Deng has underperformed and at 31 years old it would be hard to imagine his production increasing over the next few seasons. Mozgov, on the other hand, has done what he was expected to do in Luke Walton’s system, but his contract is still simply too much money for that.
Both players made sense in Walton’s system and the only way to lure them to LA was to offer money they would have never seen anywhere else.