Brooklyn Nets: Timofey Mozgov's frustration understandable, but ...

Brooklyn Nets center Timofey Mozgov is unhappy about his playing time, according to a report, but it’s a situation that is unlikely to change.

The Brooklyn Nets acquired center Timofey Mozgov on draft night in 2017, sending former All-Star big man Brook Lopez and the rights to 27th overall pick Kyle Kuzma to the Los Angeles Lakers to get former No. 2 overall pick D’Angelo Russell and Mozgov.

Mozgov was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the NBA’s Summer of Cash free agent bonanza in 2016, turning 6.3 points and 4.4 rebounds in 17.4 minutes a game and being a playoff non-entity for the NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers into a four-year, $64 million contract from the Lakers.

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In his lone season in L.A., Mozgov played regularly early in the season and saw his minutes disappear after the All-Star break (he played 15 minutes in one game after the break and didn’t appear in any of the team’s final 19 games.

The reason was simple, really. The Lakers were rebuilding and needed minutes to see what they had with young players. Playing a 30-year-old center who is adept at taking up space on a basketball court and little else made no sense in that context.

We all understand Mozgov was the price that had to be paid for the Nets to get Russell, a young player with upside.

Brooklyn was willing to absorb Mozgov’s exorbitant contact into its available cap space as the penalty for landing Russell and moving on from Lopez, who had spent his entire career with the Nets.

Mozgov started Brooklyn’s first 13 games last season before moving to a reserve role behind Trevor Booker.

Later in the season, after the Nets acquired former No. 3 overall pick Jahlil Okafor from the Philadelphia 76ers and committed to playing rookie Jarrett Allen, the minutes available at the 5 for Mozgov evaporated.

Mozgov got off the pine four times after the All-Star Break for a total of 28 minutes. Again, with Brooklyn in a serious rebuild, it made perfect sense for coach Kenny Atkinson to develop Allen and try to see what the Nets had in Okafor.

Mozgov is what he is at this point, so why take playing time away from the kids you’re trying to develop/evaluate?

That did not prevent Mozgov’s agent, Stanislav Ryzhov, from telling the New York Post that his client is unhappy with his situation.

"Yes, Mozgov is not satisfied, and Nets know about it. He is motivated to play and hates sitting on the bench. We are 100 percent sure that he is still a contributor, even iin nowadays super-fast NBA fashion."

Brooklyn Nets /

Brooklyn Nets

It’s terrific that Mozgov wants to play. There’s no questioning he’s a professional, that showed in how he handled his benching as the season played out and in Mozgov hosting 13 of his teammates at his home in L.A. last month.

Mozgov told a Russian newspaper that Atkinson never explained to him why he was being benched and that’s a legitimate gripe … even if the rest of the civilized world was able to figure it out for themselves.

Mozgov’s monster deal has two more years — and a cool $33.72 million — remaining and cap space appears to be at a premium this offseason. There just aren’t a lot of teams with much space at all, so making a deal to pawn Mozgov’s contract off on someone else just isn’t a realistic goal.

With the Nets still facing nearly $5.5 million in dead cap space each of the next two years to pay off the Deron Williams buyout in the summer of 2015, waiving Mozgov and stretching the remaining money only compounds that problem.

A potential Mozgov buyout would keep the remainder of the deal, stretched for five seasons at roughly $6.75 million a year. Not exactly a cap problem a rebuilding club wants to saddle itself with.

Okafor is set to hit unrestricted free agency on July 1 after Philadelphia last October declined the fourth-year option on his rookie deal (an almost-unheard-of development for a No. 3 pick).

That could potentially open up some minutes backing up Allen next season, but Mozgov’s options are limited because he can only play center.

Mozgov can’t stretch the floor at all (his 18 3-point attempts were the second-most of his career and he made just four of them, a 22.2 percent clip) and to refer to him being a step slow defensively might be an insult to the entire just-a-step-slow community.

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There was a time when plodding big men could enjoy long, relatively productive careers in the NBA. It’s admirable Mozgov doesn’t want to get his money for nothing, but the reality is that it is a condition that doesn’t appear likely to change.

Brooklyn Nets: Timofey Mozgov’s frustration understandable, but …

By Phil Watson | Jun 17, 2018

Brooklyn Nets center Timofey Mozgov is unhappy about his playing time, according to a report, but it’s a situation that is unlikely to change.

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