6. D’Angelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov
Following the end of that 2017 season, Magic surprised most fans when he traded Russell, the No. 2 pick of the draft just two years earlier, and Mozgov to the Nets.
Russell is still prone to bouts of inconsistency. His current performance is a tad better than his final Lakers season when he averaged 15.6 points on 40.5 percent shooting (35.2 percent on 3’s) and 4.8 assists. For the Nets, so far this year, DAR is averaging 18 PPG (while taking three more shots per game) on 40.7 percent shooting (35.6 percent from deep) and 5.8 APG.
The Nets did not exercise their team option on Russell for next season, although they have stated that they would like to re-sign him.
The much-maligned Mozgov was not as bad a player for the Lakers as he was perceived. The biggest problem was that the general manager at the time, Mitch Kupchak (who had wrongly assumed that the new NBA player agreement would continue to include an amnesty provision), had signed him to a 4-year above-market contract. Johnson was strongly motivated to rid the Lakers of that future salary commitment.
Mozgov averaged 7.4 points and 4.9 rebounds in 20 minutes per game for the Lakers. The oft-injured center played only 31 games last year with the Nets before being sidelined by injuries, which still plague him. He is currently on Orlando’s roster but has yet to appear in a game for them.
In exchange for Russell and Mozgov, the Lakers received Brook Lopez (more about him later). They also were given the No. 27 pick in the draft, which was used to select Kyle Kuzma, who of course, proved to be one of the steals of that draft, earning All-Rookie honors.
This season, Kuz is averaging 16.6 points and 5.3 rebounds in 31 minutes per game, shooting 47 percent from the field (although just 30 percent on 3-point attempts) and 74 percent on free throws. He has meshed well with LeBron James and would appear to be a fixture for the team going forward.