On Tuesday, ESPN’s Marc Stein reported that the Los Angeles Lakers have shut down Timofey Mozgov for the remainder of the season, for non-injury reasons. On Wednesday, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne confirmed Stein’s report, adding that the Lakers will also shut down fellow veteran Luol Deng:
The Los Angeles Lakers have effectively shut down healthy veterans Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov for the rest of the season to give the majority of playing time over the final 15 games to the team’s younger players, sources told ESPN.
When the Lakers offered Deng and Mozgov a combined $136 million over four seasons this summer, the skepticism around the league was palpable. Mozgov had just come off of a season in which he was benched for just about the entire year, and Deng is a 31-year-old wing who feels more like 35 or 36.
That widespread skepticism has been proven to have been warranted. Both veterans, Deng and Mozgov are the odd men out on a young Lakers team. There’s nothing wrong with a few veteran players on a young team; veteran presence is always a good thing. Usually, those vets are paid the minimum, though. Deng and Mozgov were certainly not given the minimum.
When Mozgov played, he wasn’t bad. Averaging 7.4 points and 4.9 rebounds per game while shooting 51.5 percent from the field, Mozgov may actually be the Lakers’ best player, which would be clearer if he played starters’ minutes. He isn’t a part of the Lakers’ future, though, so it doesn’t really matter.
Unlike Mozgov, Deng was bad. Though he’s known as a defense-first player, the Lakers had probably hoped that he would shoot higher than 38.6 percent from the field. Deng averaged career-low marks in minutes, points, assists and field goal percentage.
All in all, this is not a surprising move, and it’s fairly surprising that it took the Lakers this long to shut down these two. Evaluating young talent and piling up losses (#TankSZN) should be the priorities for this team right now.
