It’s a cold, cold world for Luol Deng. So cold that even his own team is laughing about how undesirable of a contract he has.
Magic Johnson met with the media on Thursday to discuss some of the Los Angeles Lakers’ trade deadline moves. He was asked a question about a Luol Deng trade and literally laughed it off:
Magic Johnson was asked by @billoram if there were any substantive conversations about Luol Deng during the trade deadline, and his initial response is AMAZING! #LakeShow #Lakers pic.twitter.com/IWNU76YGx0
— Shahan Ahmed (@shahanLA) February 8, 2018
That’s brutal.
Deng’s $72 million contract is among the worst in the NBA and has long been regarded as so bad that it’s nearly untradeable. The Lakers were able to get rid of the Timofey Mozgov contract by attaching D’Angelo Russell to him in a deal with Brooklyn, but they had nothing left to entice anyone to take Deng and gave up on trying to trade him months ago.
The Lakers will want to get rid of Deng at some point, which is why he’s on our list of potential buyout candidates. He also could be waived via the stretch provision.
