Report: Goran Dragić, Spurs Agree to Buyout As Point Guard Enters Free Agency

Goran Dragić and the Spurs have reportedly agreed to a buyout of the point guard‘s expiring contract, allowing him to enter free agency just days after being traded to San Antonio, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

Dragic, who began the year with the Raptors, was due a base salary of just more than $19.4 million this season. He‘s now expected to garner interest from a number of teams in free agency.

Toronto traded Dragić, along with a 2022 first-round pick, to San Antonio ahead of last Thursday‘s deadline in exchange for Drew Eubanks, Thaddeus Young and a 2022 second-round selection. However, the 35-year-old wasn‘t expected to last long with the Spurs, with a report from ESPN‘s Adrian Wojnarowski indicating that San Antonio planned to buy out the rest of his contract.

Over the weekend, Wojnarowski reported that the Lakers, Warriors, Clippers, Bucks, Bulls and Nets are all expected to join the “aggressive pursuit“ of Dragić.

Dragić played in just five games for Toronto this season, averaging 8.0 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.8 assists on 38.2% shooting. He had been away from the team since Nov. 28 because of personal reasons, according to an announcement from the team.

Dragić landed with the Raptors as a part of the July sign-and-trade deal with the Heat that sent fellow veteran point guard Kyle Lowry to Miami.

Comments

From Deep: At long last, Nikola Jokic's Nuggets can envision getting to the top of the mountain

Jamal Murray tore his ACL on April 12, 2021. Leading up to that night, he'd been playing at an All-NBA level for two months: In a 25-game stretch, Murray averaged 24.1 points on .509/.459/.935 shooting splits, 4.2 rebounds and 5.2 assists. He was even more efficient than he was in the bubble playoffs, and his defense had improved, too. Murray only got to play with Aaron Gordon, the Denver Nuggets' big trade-deadline addition, for five games. They won them all except the one in which Murray got injured. In 110 minutes, their new starting five scored slightly more efficiently than any iteration of the Kevin Durant-era death lineup in Golden State and defended like a top-five team. Two Nikola Jokic MVP awards later, Murray is back. So is Michael Porter Jr., who signed a five-year extension about a year ago and needed back surgery nine games into the 2020-21 season. The Nuggets remember how easily everything slid into place with Gordon in the mix. Newcomer Kentavious Caldwell-Pop...

Klay Thompson to sit out Warriors preseason games in Japan as Kerr says he needs more time to ramp-up

Klay Thompson may have returned healthy to the Golden State Warriors last season, but the scars from his two missed seasons are still quite visible. The Warriors played their first of two preseason games against the Washington Wizards on Friday and will play another on Sunday, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that Thompson will not be playing at all during the trip to Japan. "Just feel more comfortable giving him a little more of a ramp up," Kerr said before Friday's victory over Washington. "He's just not quite ready to play at this point just based on where, you know, we're so early in camp. We just want to be safe and make sure he gets a good ramp-up before he plays in games." Typically, so little time to ramp up wouldn't be a problem for a veteran in a preseason context. The games tend to be so low-impact and demand so few minutes out of a team's best players that they can safely jog through them. Stephen Curry and Draymond Green played 1...

LeBron James says he has 'no relationship' with Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

It's not a matter of if LeBron James passes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the No. 1 spot on the NBA's all-time scoring list, it's when. James sits just 1,326 points away from passing the Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Lakers legend, a milestone that should happen at some point this season given James is still performing at peak levels and is coming off a year in which he averaged over 30 points a night. If he averages around the same amount of points as he did a season ago for the Lakers, James could break the record somewhere in the middle of the season, assuming he stays healthy. It's a highly anticipated moment heading into the season, but in regards to LeBron's thoughts about and his relationship with Abdul-Jabbar, he didn't have much to say on the matter. Following the Lakers first preseason game Monday night, a reporter asked James what his thoughts were on the Lakers legend and if the two had any relationship, to which LeBron gave a very short answer. "No...

Crossover World

Search This Blog