Lakers: Three reasons signing Andrew Bogut was the right move

It gives the Lakers some room to move at center

Los Angeles needs to see growth from a position they haven’t paid as much attention to until Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka took over. With all due respect, maybe the previous front office didn’t see the Mozgov signing ending as such a train wreck, but that move combined with Luol Deng getting signed didn’t put the Lakers in a good financial or basketball position.

Now that Mozgov has moved on to the Nets, Brooklyn will try and see if they can right the ship that is his career. Los Angeles, however, now has a star center on top of a young talent in Ivica Zubac followed by another veteran in Andrew Bogut.

The addition of Bogut, as long as he stays healthy, will give the Lakers some time to try and better access Zubac and his role with the team moving forward. Thomas Bryant is also in the mix, but the three players mentioned before him are also likely going to all be ahead of him in the depth chart.

Once next summer hits though, both Brook Lopez and Andrew Bogut will be free agents. This will leave the Lakers will their young guys in Bryant and Zubac to lead the next generation of basketball, unless one or both of the aforementioned veterans comes back.

There was once criticism from Timofey Mozgov that Ivica Zubac wasn’t ready to be a starter, so having a veteran like Bogut that you can put ahead or behind Zubac at any time will help us see if that’s a fair critique. Bogut won’t likely get tons of minutes, but Luke Walton could find a way to get him involved without overdoing it.

For the sake of the future beyond this season, the Lakers need to be able to have a dependable center. This helps them figure that out.