You may have heard: The NBA is short on really useful tall men. Blame it on the recent small-ball revolution, blame it on the current crop of players growing up in eras highlighted by guard-play, whatever -- but back-to-the-basket, grind-it-out-inside centers have become a rarity and a luxury in today’s league.
That’s the context you need to begin to understand what's being framed as the first truly ludicrous, lucrative deal of the 2016 NBA offseason -- the Los Angeles Lakers’ early Friday morning offer to Timofey Mozgov, in which they’re planning to hand him $64 million for four years of his time, per Adrian Wojnarowski.
Yes, Timofey Mozgov. The 7-foot-1 Timofey Mozgov who posted 6.3 points and 4.4 points last season. The Timofey Mozgov who’s turning 30 in two weeks and pocketed 1.2 points and 1.6 boards this past postseason. That Timofey Mozgov.
As ESPN's Kevin Negandhi pointed out, Mozgov scored only 15 points in the 2016 playoffs. Now, he'll earn $16 million for a year's work. Reigning MVP Steph Curry will make roughly $12 million in that same span of time. And under his last contract, Mozgov averaged only a tick over $4.5 million annually -- making for quite a raise as he moves west this summer.
Of course, the astonishing deal is, in part, thanks to a surging salary cap, which has enabled more teams to pay more players more paper. And LA really does need a big man to anchor play down low. But those facts didn’t stop Lakers loyalists from doing the Twitter equivalent of screaming into a pillow this morning -- and didn’t stop all other franchises’ fans from delighting in the LA brass’ latest seemingly inexplicable move.
Here were some of the best reactions:
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