Lakers Season In Review: Luol Deng’s Cap Hold

Welcome to our annual Lakers season in review series, where we’ll be taking a look back at every player on the team’s roster this season, evaluating their play, and deciding if they should be a part of the organization’s future. Today, we take a closer look at Luol Deng’s cap hold.

How did he play?

If you looked at the Lakers’ stat sheets, you would never be able to tell that Luol Deng’s Cap Hold was the sixth-highest-paid player on the team this season, making $4.9 million to score zero points, dish zero assists and literally not exist on the defensive end. Despite that lack of production, only LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Dennis Schröder, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Montrezl Harrell made more money. That’s hardly an ideal allocation of resources.

Still, Cap Hold missed fewer open threes in the playoffs than Schröder, so it’s hard to place too much of the blame on him when Frank Vogel didn’t even give Cap Hold any minutes to see if he could make an impact. All in all, it was just a season to forget for Cap Hold.

What is his contract situation moving forward?

Cap Hold — who is the longest-tenured player on the team, around since the summer of 2016, when his father, Luol Deng, signed a four-year, $72 million deal — is currently on the Lakers’ books for another $4.9 million next season. His deal is one of just six contracts the Lakers are guaranteed to be paying in 2021. That is the final year of Cap Hold’s deal, after which he will bypass unrestricted free agency to instead fade from existence like one of Thanos’ Blip victims.

Should he be back?

Cap Hold is under contract, has a no-trade clause and can’t be waived, so this question is sort of moot in his case. He will be back on the Lakers next season. So even if he can’t make an impact on the floor, hopefully Cap Hold can learn from Jared Dudley and at least try to serve as a veteran presence in the locker room and mentor some young players during the time he has left.

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