Originally Posted by
CrazyNotCrazie
This is a great summary of why I don't like the NBA. Teams fall over themselves to pay ridiculous contracts that they are trying to back out of within days. All of the salary cap influenced moves and the tanking to get good draft picks takes away from the game on the court. I appreciate that unlike the NFL, contracts are guaranteed, but there should be a way to prevent situations like this, as the goal should be to put the best product on the floor, and having Deng sitting around doing nothing clearly is not accomplishing that when countless inferior players are getting significant PT.
1) No one forced Deng to play for the Lakers. They merely offered him the most amount of money. Also, everyone knew the Lakers were going to be in rebuilding mode a year ago. Why they signed Deng and Mozgov is a mystery.
2) Every 10 years or so, the NBA goes through a union change where a team can buy out a player. The Lakers already used this up.
3) Deng is making $18M per year for the next 2.5 years. I feel about as bad for him as a I do when a child of Bill and Melinda Gates gets a B+ on a test (which is to say, I couldn't care less).
4) Deng may be better than some of the "inferior" players, as you say. But he doesn't have more long-term potential. And given the Lakers are in rebuilding mode, it makes sense to player your young guys a lot.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club