JULY 15TH, 12:58pm: The Kings have officially signed Landry, the team announced today in a press release.
JULY 6TH, 3:35pm: The value of Landry's deal has yet to be finalized, but it will be between $26MM and $27MM, and it will likely include a player option as well, tweets Shams Charania of RealGM.com.
3:23pm: Carl Landry will sign with the Kings, agent Mark Bartelstein tells TNT's David Aldridge (Twitter link). The power forward will get a four-year, $26MM package, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The 29-year-old had been in serious talks with the Clippers, but it appears they were outbid, as Marc Stein notes on Twitter, pegging the value of Landry's deal at $27MM. Either way, the Clippers were limited to their mid-level exception, and the Kings were willing to surpass that.
Landry spent last season with the Warriors, but declined his $4MM player option. He said his first priority was to re-sign with Golden State, and even though the W's recent moves appear to have enabled the team to have the flexibility to re-sign him and Jarrett Jack, the prospect of a tidy raise appears to have been too tempting for Landry.
The Blazers and Bucks appeared to be in the mix as well, and Landry expected a half dozen teams to pursue him. The former second-round pick averaged 10.8 points and a career-high 6.0 rebounds this past season, but his value has shown up better in advanced metrics, as his career PER is 17.7, well above average.
The Kings had been angling for more expensive targets this summer, but withdrew their four-year, $56MM offer to Andre Iguodala, and gave up on retaining Tyreke Evans, sending the restricted free agent out in a sign-and-trade that netted Greivis Vasquez. The team could use the money it's saved on another complementary piece to go along with Landry.
This is good. Filling out the roster.. If we get a SF, we could be a top 10 western conference team. Considering many will tank.
The Western Conference looks like it will be even tougher than usual.