Hear me out.
A major priority this season should be trading Deng. Why? Even if we can't trade them, Lopez, KCP, Randle, Lopez can all be renounced anyways at the end of the year. Clarkson should be tradeable for an expiring; worst case scenario, we give up a 2nd rounder to clear him.
But Luol Deng? Deng stands in the way of assembling a superteam (we need to open up around 90m this summer). His salary is an impediment, and we can't stretch him either - it's too much.
Would that agenda kill our team? The answer is likely no. In fact, he'd help it. How?
1) Defense.
Deng is likely our best small forward defender. Yes. Deng's defensive numbers were actually pretty good last season. His defensive real plus minus ranked right between Jae Crowder and Andre Iguodala. What? Yeah. Yes. It's amazing he was able to do that considering we were so bad as a team.
"Screw stats, eye test says he sucks! He looks slow. He looks done."
I had this very view. But psychology says perception is colored by many factors, including frustration with his contract and his production. Which is 100% true, which leads to:
2) Offense.
Deng is likely our best three-point shooter at forward, aside from Kuzma. He shot 36% and 34% before joining the Lakers, as high as 40% a few years ago. Then why was he so bad at 31% last year? First, our entire team was a mess, and D'Angelo is not Lonzo Ball. Lonzo should give him better looks. Deng is a good 3-and-D option for our team at the wing. If Deng settles into being an average 3% shooter for us, that's actually a major plus for our team.
3) Boxscore stuffing.
Deng had a career high rebounding rate per 36. His blocks, steals, all career levels. Turnovers were career lows. Again, the other aspects of his game has held up, to say the least. His rebounding at the 3 is a sneaky asset, because Ingram and KCP hurt us there, as does Brook Lopez.
4) Position.
Deng can be moved around based on the matchup. Regardless of where we play him, every team will have a 3-and-D wing. That's the guy we can match Deng up with. Or a flex-four. Whatever will keep him on the floor. I don't like Corey Brewer taking minutes, I don't like KCP taking minutes, both of those guys will be gone. We don't need them auditioning for other teams at our expense. If we want to play Ingram, play him at the 2 to open up time for Deng.
Here's the goal: if we can get Deng back to his career numbers, 15 pos, 6 boards, solid D, good numbers across the board, this 32-year-old will find a taker. As I've shown above, there's ZERO reason to believe he won't - the only thing that dropped last season was his 3-point shooting. Everything else was the good. But we need to give him consistent minutes, let him get in rhythm, and he needs 30 minutes to see his production reach attractive numbers.
The big upside of this, aside from clearing his contract to proceed with the 2018 superteam plan, is that we can keep Brandon Ingram, and be patient with his growth. If Ingram limits his role and 3-and-D's along with Deng at the wings, then we actually will start playing better basketball, get some attention, etc.
The truth is, the talent at the wing is extremely thin in the league right now. A huge fall-off after the top ten. It's a cliff. Get Deng going, and he'll be much easier to move.
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