Los Angeles Lakers and Joakim Noah are the perfect match

The New York Knicks followed the Los Angeles Lakers’ lead in stretching Luol Deng and are set to stretch and waive veteran big man Joakim Noah.

From one veteran former Chicago Bulls player to another. The Los Angeles Lakers have an open roster spot to offer after stretching and waiving Luol Deng; Joakim Noah needs to find a new home after being stretched and waived by the New York Knicks.

The Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks made these moves for exactly the same reason. Deng was owed $36 million over the next two seasons and prevented the Lakers from signing a second max star. This stretch provision freed up $13 million in cap space.

Instead of paying Deng the $18 million he was initially owed in 2019-2020, the Lakers will pay him $5 million from 2019 up until the 2021-2022 NBA season.

Noah had a near identical cap hit on the New York Knicks. Noah is owed $37.8 million over the next two seasons. And while the buyout is not yet official, it is projected that a buyout and stretch would take his cap hit down to $6.2 million in the same timeframe (Credit: Steve Popper, Newsday).

Ironically, Noah presents a perfect signing for the Los Angeles Lakers to make despite being the Knicks’ version of Deng. Both were owed virtually the same amount of money, both are past their primes and both were solid players on the Bulls.

Despite the similarities, the Lakers really cannot go wrong with signing Noah. The team has an open 15th roster spot that otherwise would go to a two-way player that will not get a ton of playing time.

And while Noah may not be as skilled as he was five years ago, he still provides the Lakers depth at the center position, which is the team’s weakest spot. Even if it is only for eight minutes a game, having Noah on the roster to take pressure off JaVale McGee and Ivica Zubac would be huge.

Plus, alongside LeBron James and in a system that uses him properly, Noah could become a good spark guy off the bench for LA. Playing for a contending team would certainly help Noah get fired up and perform better than the 1.7 points and 2.0 rebounds per game that he averaged last season.

It is worth the roster spot for the Lakers, who would not be taking a risk at all as Noah would be brought in on the veteran minimum and would not tie the team’s hands in the future.

And if Noah ends up being a bad locker room presence or it simply is not a good fit, the team can release him at any point. We saw the Lakers make a very similar move last season in bringing in Andrew Bogut this late in the offseason.

Bogut played 23 games and actually started five before being released. It didn’t hurt the team in any sense. Neither will Joakim Noah.