The Los Angeles Lakers waived center DeAndre Jordan on Monday, ending his tenure with the team. While that is not a huge shock, it is a bit strange how the team went about business with Jordan.
Unless Jordan is claimed on waivers, the Lakers will still be on the hook for his contract and the luxury tax payments that will come with it. That totals up to roughly $5 million. As pointed out by John Hollinger of The Athletic, the Lakers could have dumped Jordan’s salary at the trade deadline to get the same outcome but without the luxury tax hit.
Lakers cost themselves roughly $5M in tax payments and a small trade exception by not just sending cash to another team to take DeAndre Jordan at the trade deadline. Hey, it's the Buss's money, but that's some FO malpractice right there.
— John Hollinger (@johnhollinger) March 1, 2022
Teams make trades like the one Hollinger is proposing all the time. Why the Lakers didn’t is a bit of a mystery. One possibility is that kicking in a draft pick, even a second-round selection, was not something they wanted to do in order to get someone to take Jordan’s salary. That was the rationale they reportedly used with regard to another move they did not make.
Of course, maybe the Lakers made the decision to dump Jordan very recently. That is what the internet thinks, anyway.
Photo: Sep 27, 2019; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka answers a question during the Lakers media day at the UCLA Health Training Center in El Segundo, CA. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports
