Trade grades: Do Lakers or Nets win the Lopez for Russell deal?

The deal

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Lakers get:?Center Brook Lopez, No. 27 pick of 2017 NBA draft

Nets get:?Guard D'Angelo Russell, center Timofey Mozgov

Brooklyn Nets: A-

From a value standpoint, this is not a great trade for the Nets. Because Mozgov projects as no better than a replacement player over the remaining three seasons of his contract, during which he'll be paid $48 million (thanks, Mitch Kupchak), his negative surplus value is far greater than the positive surplus value Russell figures to provide over the final two seasons of his rookie contract.

And yet I'm still a fan of this trade. Whatever the appropriate geographic location is for Russell supporters (Is it an island? A small city?), I'm a resident. I get the criticisms: His attitude is questionable, his defense is worse and he hasn't proven an explosive athlete against NBA opponents. Despite all that, he submitted one of the 25 best offensive seasons by a point guard 21 or younger as measured by Basketball-Reference.com's box plus-minus metric.

Point guards tend to continue developing later than players at other positions -- particularly bigger points, like the 6-foot-5 Russell -- and there's reason to believe he's still just scratching the surface of his potential. Of the 10 players my SCHOENE projection system rates most similar to Russell at the same age, three (Gilbert Arenas, Chauncey Billups and Jrue Holiday) developed into All-Stars, and? Mike Conley is perhaps the best player ever not to make an All-Star team.

Becoming a dangerous 3-point shooter off the dribble could unlock the rest of Russell's game by forcing defenders to play over screens, much as it has for Conley, Kyle Lowry and Kemba Walker, to name three. His 38.7 percent shooting on pull-up 3s after the All-Star break (having shot 30.1 percent on them before the break) offered a glimpse of what Russell could become if he adds that shot on a consistent basis.

Because the team hasn't had its own draft picks, Brooklyn simply hasn't had any ability to acquire a young player as talented as Russell, and probably won't until at least the 2019 draft. (That's the first time the Nets control their own pick again.)

Yes, the Nets have been able to get their hands on some later first-round picks, including the pick they sent the Lakers in the deal, the price for taking on Andrew Nicholson's contract in the deadline trade that sent Bojan Bogdanovic to the Washington Wizards. Given the limited trade market for centers, I suspect the return for Lopez would have been similarly modest, and the same with using the cap space they'll now spend on Mozgov to take on other bad contracts in exchanges for picks.

Only by taking on this much salary, and sending back their own best player in Lopez, could Brooklyn add a player with this much upside. I think that's a move well worth making.

Los Angeles Lakers: B

This trade serves dual functions for the Lakers, who were able to improve next season and quite possibly beyond.

In the short term, Lopez is a huge upgrade over the flotsam they've been running out at center since Pau Gasol's departure three summers ago. The appalling thing about the Mozgov contract wasn't just how shortsighted it was, given the value of cap space to the Lakers. It was also the fact that Mozgov wasn't even good in the short term. The Lakers played better after shutting Mozgov down for the season after the All-Star break, ostensibly to tank.

Whichever teammates end up around him, Lopez should make the Lakers' offensive attack more potent. Always a high-volume scorer from the post and midrange, Lopez unexpectedly added 3-point range last season, making 134 3-pointers at a 34.6 percent clip after attempting only 31 3s in his first eight NBA seasons. Russell (135) and Nick Young (170), now a potential free agent, were the only Lakers to surpass Lopez's total.

Lopez is an underrated rim protector when he's in position to contest shots. He held opponents to 47.0 percent shooting within five feet as a primary defender last season, per SportVU tracking on NBA.com/Stats, putting him just outside the league's top 10 and far better than Mozgov (53.4 percent) or any other Lakers player. Mobility is probably no more of an issue for him than it is for Mozgov, though Lopez's defensive rebounding could be an issue depending who's at power forward.

Still, the real benefit of this trade for the Lakers comes in the summer of 2018, when Lopez's contract expires. That will potentially leave only the No. 27 pick on the books for 2018-19 from this trade, meaning the Lakers will have successfully cleared $21.6 million in cap space. That puts them in position to make at least one max offer and gives them a realistic path to having two max spots if they trade Jordan Clarkson and trade or waive and stretch Luol Deng.

I'm not certain that was worth giving up on Russell. Mozgov would have been easier to move in a year, when he would have had one less season on his contract, and frankly I'd probably have rather seen what I could get for attaching Mozgov's contract to Brandon Ingram instead given my skepticism about Ingram's future after an inefficient rookie season.

That noted, the new Lakers front office clearly did not agree with me about Russell's potential, and the expected arrival of Lonzo Ball as the No. 2 overall pick on Thursday could have crowded him out of the backcourt rotation. In that case, Russell's value might have declined further from here, so now was probably the time to move him.