JULY 14, 1:40pm: The Spurs have formally issued a press release to confirm their deal with Dedmon.
JULY 7, 10:52am: The second year of Dedmon’s deal with the Spurs will be a player option, tweets Michael Scott of The Associated Press.
10:01am: The Spurs have agreed to a two-year, $6MM deal with free agent center Dewayne Dedmon, reports Shams Charania of The Vertical (via Twitter). Dedmon started out the free agent period as a restricted free agent, but the Magic rescinded his qualifying offer earlier this week, freeing him up to sign with any team.
The news of San Antonio’s agreement with Dedmon comes on the heels of a report that the Pistons are set to sign Spurs RFA Boban Marjanovic to a three-year, $21MM offer sheet. It sounds as if the Spurs are re-signed to losing Marjanovic, since they don’t hold his Bird rights and don’t have the cap room to match Detroit’s offer. Dedmon will be a less expensive replacement.
Dedmon, who will turn 27 next month, appeared in 58 games for the Magic last season, starting 20. He was a serviceable depth piece for the team, posting averages of 4.4 PPG, 3.9 RPG, and 0.8 BPG in just 12.2 minutes per contest.
Per Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link), the Warriors “really” wanted to land Dedmon as a rim protector for their bench. However, Golden State could only offer the minimum salary. Based on the reported terms of Dedmon’s agreement with the Spurs, it sounds like San Antonio will fit him in using the $2.9MM room exception.