Lakers-Nets Trade
While the rumors and speculation are fun, perhaps the biggest and certainly one of the most substantial bits of news was the major trade that went down between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets, which saw the Nets ship off Brook Lopez and the 27th pick in this year’s draft for young, promising point guard D’Angelo Russell and the brutal contract of Timofey Mozgov.
This one may seem a little odd on the surface, but essentially the Nets landed a potential star point guard that could be a crucial young piece in their rebuild while ridding themselves of Brook Lopez’s soon-to-expire contract.
Meanwhile, the Lakers added an extra pick while dumping Mozgov’s contract and adding a solid player in Lopez who will be a free agent at the end of the season, thus not taking up cap space if the Lakers hope to clear room in the summer of 2018.
Not to mention, the Lakers could very well be using that pick to land a much bigger fish in a trade… More on that to come.
Lakers shed $54M left on Mozgov deal, Nets get gifted young guard in Russell. Nets needed to flip Lopez expiring contract. https://t.co/KxfdEuAUO0
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 20, 2017
This doesn’t have a huge bearing on the Jazz just yet, however, the Brooklyn Nets were a team that was potentially interested in throwing big money at George Hill, but now that they have Russell and, on a side note, the Philadelphia 76ers, who also were interested in Hill, have Fultz, it could very well raise Utah’s chances of retaining their point guard.
Beyond that, it’s clear that LA is done sticking with mediocrity and could be on the rise sooner rather than later. With Golden State and San Antonio already standing in the way of the Jazz, adding the Los Angeles Lakers into the mix within the next few years could prove to be yet another difficult obstacle.