#Nets will give Gerald Wallace $40 mil for four years
— Fred Kerber (@FredKerber) July 1, 2012
The fourth year is fully guaranteed, via a source of Howard Beck’s.
And so the first domino falls. The Brooklyn Nets desperately wanted to retain Gerald Wallace, both to justify that trading the sixth overall pick wasn’t a complete failure, and because Gerald Wallace was the only reason the Nets were worth watching down the stretch of last season. (Him and Gerald Green.) In his sixteen games with the Nets, Wallace averaged 15.2 points and 6.8 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per game, produced 110 points per 100 possessions, and put up a PER of 17.2. He only shot 47.6% at the rim, nearly 10% below the league average, but hit a higher percentage of his threes than in any full season of his career, both numbers that scream of a small sample size.
The deal will presumably pay him $10 million flat over four years, though it’s not clear if the deal is backloaded. Lot of folks saying this deal is an overpay. And they may be right. But there are an awful lot of bad players on similar and worse deals. That money for a wing that score, play defense, and blend in to the players around him is hardly unreasonable.
The fourth year may be the only semi-albatross in the deal, and by that point he’s both an expiring contract, which as Mehmet Okur showed us has its own special value. He’s also eligible for the stretch exception, allowing the Nets to waive his contract and pay half the price each year over twice the time.
My only significant question with the deal is: was anyone else on the market going to pay Gerald Wallace $40 million over four years?
