Through three games, the Los Angeles Lakers’ rotation is taking shape. One player that isn’t in it is Luol Deng.
With a lot of depth this season, the Los Angeles Lakers were going to have an interesting rotation. Due to the emergence of some of their young players, Luke Walton has certainly had some tough decisions.
In the first game of the season, the Lakers were a bit short-handed at the wing. This resulted in veteran Luol Deng starting. Deng was a non-factor in that game, and he hasn’t been playing since.
Deng has been a solid player in his NBA career, but as shown last season, he appears to have had his skills diminish quickly. With some other talented players on the roster, Deng isn’t going to be in the rotation for the foreseeable future. Recently, Luke Walton talked to Bill Oram of the OC Register about Deng’s role.
"“As of now he’s not in the rotation as far as consistently penciled in without something happening,” Walton said."
At the wing, the Lakers currently have Brandon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma as young players that are growing. In addition to those two, Corey Brewer also appears to be ahead of Deng on the depth chart.
In addition to the traditional lineups, the Lakers could also go with smaller lineups that feature Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at small forward. Either way, Deng is out of the rotation.
Seeing Deng out of the rotation is certainly good for the Lakers on the court, but they have a big problem with his large contract now. This past offseason, the Lakers were able to unload one of their bad contracts in Timofey Mozgov. Unfortunately, Deng’s contract is still there for the Lakers.
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Having a player making that much money with no role on the team certainly can hurt the organization. While the Lakers would like to trade Deng, they would have to part ways with a talented young player in order to even have a chance of trading him. Moving forward, Walton will be asking Deng to stay prepared, but the Lakers will be going forward with other options at the forward position.