The Los Angeles Lakers move to trade D’Angelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov to the Brooklyn Nets for Brook Lopez and the No. 27 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft is reportedly finalized.
Most of the coverage of that transaction has (justifiably) focused on the Lakers giving up on Russell, or the team’s desire to clear Mozgov’s salary to gear up for a pursuit of LeBron James or whatever.
Gone ignored in all of this are the basketball merits of the deal, mainly because there aren’t many basketball reasons (shouts to David Stern) for a team trading arguably its most promising young player for salary cap relief and a late first-rounder.