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September 3, 2015It’s officially official: The Cleveland Cavaliers have re-signed shooting guard J.R. Smith, per an announcement made Wednesday evening by General Manager David Griffin.
Terms of the contract were not revealed by the Cavs, per team and league policies, but of course the details of Smith’s two-year, $10 million deal are out there. According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, Smith’s “overall unusual” contract includes a player option for the second year and is laden with incentives:
JR Smith's deal with Cavs is 2 years/10.3M total. But first year just 2M guaranteed, 2nd year player option is 2.1M guaranteed sources said.
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) September 2, 2015
Smith has guarantee dates and incentives in deal that make it likely he will get full salary. But it is overall an unusual contract.
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) September 2, 2015
Smith came to the Cavs in early January through a three-team trade that also brought Iman Shumpert to Cleveland. In his 46 games (45 starts) with the Cavs, the 6-foot-6 guard averaged 12.7 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.4 steals in 31.8 minutes per game. The three-point specialist led Cleveland in steal-to-turnover ratio (1.23) and made the most three-pointers in the Eastern Conference from the time the Cavs acquired him on January 5 (131 three-pointers).
During Cleveland’s NBA Finals run in the 2015 playoffs, Smith appeared in 18 games (four starts), averaging 12.8 points and 4.7 rebounds in 31.1 minutes per game.
Following his struggles in the Finals, Smith declined his $6.4 million player option for the 2015-16 season to test the free agent market — a move that surprised many. “That’s always part of the gamble of opting out,” he told NEOMG at the NBA players’ union summer meeting in Las Vegas in July, when he was still waiting for a deal.
The right deal never came in and, on August 20, Smith took to Instagram to announce that he intended to return to The Land after all:
8 Comments
I’m very excited to see what these guys can do with a full season together.
Mo and Sybil on the court at the same time…
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Everyone but KI and the diva who has his heads in the clouds right now you mean. I haven’t heard much on K-Love I wonder how his come back is going.
Good contract: word is that J.R.’s metrics to get full price are easily obtainable. So as long as he stays healthy and out of trouble, win win. And should his inner 8th grader take over again, and he gets suspended or extensively benched, take your $2m and see ya.
JR laying that two year deal pipe. Nice.
image credit @cavsanada
This kind of contract is why I am in the Griffin camp when it comes to all of the Tristan Thompson drama. I have to believe based on what Griffin has done so far and how he has done it that he has been more then fair with Thompson. It’s either Thompson’s ego or a true desire to leave and possibly go back to Toronto that is the holdup. Honestly I am just fine with Thompson signing a one year deal. The longer it goes the more I might be fine with him staying home. Of course I’d prefer him playing but it’s not up to me.
or it could be that Griffin understands that Rich Paul is right, that a player like TT getting the max is the upcoming NBA normal. And the hold up is that Griffin needs a little more time to massage Dan’s shoulders and convince him that it is what it is, and it won’t seem so outrageous at all in a couple of years.
Just like I told the other commentator here: NOPE!