Los Angeles Lakers: Grading every move of Magic Johnson’s tenure

Buying out Luol Deng — A

• Date: September 3, 2018

Yet another great move by the Los Angeles Lakers front office under Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka. If you have been paying attention, the duo has made many more great moves than bad moves and as a result has put the Los Angeles Lakers in a much better situation than the team was 18 months ago.

The final icing on the cake happened on September 3 as Luol Deng agreed to give $7.5 million back to the Los Angeles Lakers to allow the team to buy him out so he could pursue actual playing time elsewhere.

This move opened up more cap space for the Lakers, which now sits at $41.7 million in practical cap space, per Spotrac. This is enough for the Lakers to pursue another star next summer as well as depth.

Getting Luol Deng off the books has been a goal for the Los Angeles Lakers since Magic Johnson since he took over the team and it was only fitting that we wrote this grades article after he was finally able to do so.

The only thing holding this back from an A+ is the fact there was one better alternative. The Lakers could have somehow found a team to take Deng’s expiring contract for future draft picks or even one or two of the team’s rookies.

While this means the team did not have to sacrifice youth, it would have opened up even more cap space. And plus, the Lakers are fine in the youth department.

However, that does not take away from how good this move was for the Lakers and how important it is in getting the team back to the NBA Finals.