SATURDAY: The signing is official, the team announced.
THURSDAY: Glen Davis is on his way back to the Clippers, a source tells Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). It’s a minimum-salary deal, Turner adds in a second tweet, which is somewhat surprising, since he turned down that same amount from the Clippers when he declined his player option last month. L.A. already committed its mid-level and biannual exceptions, but they could have given Davis 20% more than the minimum through his Non-Bird rights.
Davis joined the Clippers in February shortly after securing his release from the Magic, but he saw just 13.4 minutes per game, which would have represented a career low if extrapolated over an entire season. He wasn’t particularly efficient in those minutes, either, compiling a 10.3 PER, which also would have been a career-worst mark. He had a more prominent role with the Magic, where he put up 12.1 points and 6.3 rebounds in 30.1 minutes per contest with a 13.7 PER in the first half of the season.
The 28-year-old John Hamilton client might have looked for a place where he could return to a larger role, and Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers might have opted against re-signing a player who fell flat for the team last season. Still, their relationship seems to have proven too much of a draw. Rivers coached Davis to a championship on the Celtics in 2008, serving as coach and mentor for the first four years of Big Baby’s career. The Clippers appeared to be the only team with which Davis had serious talks.
Davis, a seven-year veteran, will receive $1,227,985 in the deal, but only $915,243 will count against the cap. That leaves just $1,149,228 of breathing room against the hard cap created when the Clippers used their mid-level and biannual exceptions on Spencer Hawes and Jordan Farmar, respectively. The only way the Clippers can fit multiple additional signees on the roster is if they’re both making the minimum salary. The crunch helps explain why they didn’t give Davis 20% more than the minimum as his Non-Bird rights would have allowed.
It helps when you’re still making $6+ million being paid to you from the Magic all next year…
Very true! Still, any money he’d make this year would go on top of it. It’s a common misconception (not one you’re making here rxbrgr, but worth mentioning nonetheless) that the right to set-off would make it more advantageous for a player to sign a cheaper contract if another team still owes him money. In fact, a more lucrative contract benefits both the player and his former team. More on that here: link to hoopsrumors.com…
–Chuck
Thanks, it seems like an interesting part of the CBA. For a majority of those waived players (typ. being on mininum or similarly small deals) this wouldn’t be a whole lot of cash going back to the original team. But if Davis had gotten at least mini-mid level $$, which I thought going into FA he could have, than that’s a bit more of a substantial “refund”.