Luol Deng hasn’t played for the Lakers since 2018. Yet, after three seasons and a Championship, he is somehow still managing to be the sixth highest-paid player on the team.
Crazy but true: Luol Deng is the 6th highest paid player on the Lakers this season 🤯 pic.twitter.com/e4FK5XAK6C
— Lakers Daily (@LakersDailyCom) January 20, 2021
Deng agreed to a four-year, $72 million contract in 2016. After a few attempts at trying to make things work, the Lakers decided to waive him and stretch his contract — which will have them paying him roughly $18 million through the 2022 season.
Needless to say, it’s not an ideal situation for the Lakers to be in, especially with how high their payroll already is. Between LeBron James and Anthony Davis alone, they owe roughly $80 million.
The fact that a player who isn’t even in the league anymore is still making more money than almost half the roster is really telling and quite unfortunate. If nothing else, the situation shows how damaging handing out a bad contract can be.
Of course, it won’t be long now before the Purple and Gold are finally rid of that terrible deal. Though, they’ve been far too busy winning titles to worry much about that anyway…
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