{"id":16920,"date":"2018-09-02T12:37:04","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T16:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=16920"},"modified":"2018-09-02T12:37:04","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T16:37:04","slug":"report-los-angeles-lakers-agree-to-buyout-with-luol-deng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2018\/09\/02\/report-los-angeles-lakers-agree-to-buyout-with-luol-deng\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Los Angeles Lakers Agree to Buyout with Luol Deng"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to reports, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/nba-teams\/los-angeles-lakers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> have reached an agreement on a buyout with forward <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/denglu01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luol Deng<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Chris Haynes of ESPN broke the news earlier today:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Veteran forward Luol D\u00e8ng and the Los Angeles Lakers have reached an agreement on a buyout, league sources tell ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisBHaynes\/status\/1035910680572964865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 1, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Report: Los Angeles Lakers Agree to Buyout with Luol Deng<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Deng signed a four-year deal worth $72 million during the summer of 2016. His production severely<a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2018\/03\/07\/nba-teams-bad-contracts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> declined<\/a> with the Lakers. During the 2016-17 season, he shot only 38.7% from the field and averaged 7.6 points per game, which was the first time in his career that he did not average\u00a0double digits. Deng appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2017\/01\/17\/forward-luol-deng-out-indefinitely\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">only one game<\/a> last season and scored two points. With forwards <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a><\/strong> and<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/beaslmi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Beasley<\/a> <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2018\/07\/20\/report-michael-beasley-signs-contract-los-angeles-lakers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">joining<\/a> the squad, there was no path to playing time for him.<\/p>\n<p>Deng still had two years left on his contract. The Lakers should add an additional 11 to 13 million dollars in cap space for next summer after the deal is final. This would bring their total to at $36 million and open up another max slot. With <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2018\/07\/01\/lebron-james-agrees-los-angeles-lakers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James on the team<\/a>, this move was inevitable. The Lakers are in win-now mode and have been linked to 2019 free agents <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/butleji01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jimmy Butler<\/a> <\/strong>and<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/leonaka01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kawhi Leonard<\/a><\/strong>. Their clear priority is adding another star player to play with James and offloading Deng&#8217;s salary was the first step to accomplish that.<\/p>\n<p>Deng has been a very effective player throughout his career. He is a two-time All-Star\u00a0and was on the 2011-12 All-Defensive\u00a0second team. Deng is primarily known for time with the Chicago Bulls when he was an elite perimeter\u00a0defender and skilled scorer. He still has talent and played well enough with the Miami Heat during the 2015-16 season to earn a $72 million contract. At this point in his career, he would be better suited as a power forward. Deng should be able to find a roster spot on a contender or a young team looking for a veteran presence.<\/p>\n<p>Main Image:<br \/>\n<a id=\"VZqyLCrbQlN3woON-w5UlQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/630526230\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'VZqyLCrbQlN3woON-w5UlQ',sig:'uB9C3MPensMgSgzOdxb1DQqy-yjh2RKYamorNW6tKyc=',w:'594px',h:'437px',items:'630526230',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to reports, the Los Angeles Lakers have reached an agreement on a buyout with forward Luol Deng opening up cap space for next summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2689,"featured_media":16922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,26,62],"tags":[142,168,38,152,316,297],"class_list":["post-16920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-lakers","category-nba","tag-jimmy-butler","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luol-deng","tag-nba-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Daniel Richeson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2689"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}