Brooklyn Nets near top of NBA in dead cap space

The Brooklyn Nets’ deal to acquire Dwight Howard in order to shed Timofey Mozgov’s contract has the team near the top of the NBA in dead salary cap space.

The Brooklyn Nets are currently second in the NBA in a dubious category — dead salary cap space.

Figures compiled by Luke Adams of Hoops Rumors based on the tabulations by Jeff Siegel at Early Bird Rights have the Nets with nearly $24.3 million in dead money thus far in the 2018-19 league year.

Dead money is what a team is left with when it opts to waive a player with a guaranteed contract.

Brooklyn’s dead money thus far has come from just two sources — the nearly $5.5 million cap hit for using the stretch provision in 2015 to buy out Deron…