One of the defining moments of the Los Angeles Lakers rebuild from 2013-18 was the hyper-inflated contracts handed out to Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng in the summer of 2016.
The NBA’s salary cap spiked after a new TV deal, and without any interested stars, the Lakers had to give their money to anyone who wanted it. This led to signing Mozgov a four-year, $64 million deal and Deng a four-year, $72 million contract, both of which were almost immediately seen as massive mistakes.
After one year of the Mozgov deal, L.A. was able to remove his salary off the books entirely by trading him — along with D’Angelo Russell — to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Brook Lopez and a first-round pick that later became Kyle Kuzma.