JULY 9TH, 9:20am: The deal is official, the Blazers announced.
11:48pm: Aminu confirmed the agreement with the Blazers on Twitter (h/t David Aldridge of NBA.com on Twitter).
JUNE 30TH, 11:29pm: Al-Farouq Aminu will sign a four-year, $30MM deal with the Blazers, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The figure means that Portland will be using cap space unless it can engineer a sign-and-trade, and it also represents a significant raise on the minimum salary the forward made this past season.
The Mavs had been concerned that Aminu would land a lucrative offer, and so they were reportedly poised to try to convince him to sign a one-year deal that might have allowed him to further up his value. Blazers GM Neil Olshey drafted Aminu when he was with the Clippers, so he is quite familiar with the fifth-year player.
Aminu proved a valuable part of the Mavs rotation even as he recorded his fewest minutes (18.5) and points (5.6) per game since his rookie season. His 14.4 PER set a new career high, and ESPN ranks him sixth among small forwards this season in its Defensive Real Plus/Minus metric. He saw equal time at small forward and power forward, according to Basketball-Reference, and he’d rank seventh in Defensive Real Plus/Minus among players at the four. Even though he was mostly used in a reserve role in the regular season, he was featured more prominently during the playoffs. He started two of five postseason games against the Rockets, averaging 11.2 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, while shooting 64% from 3-point range.
Aminu had visits scheduled with the Knicks, Celtics, Raptors, and Pelicans, but apparently the nationwide tour has been called off just minutes into free agency.
That’s a pretty big overpay…
Can say its an over pay because the cap going up next summer. Just watch everyone about to get paid this summer and next.
While the cap explosion will definitely help minimize the impact of a deal like this, it’s still not good business.
They must believe that he will continue to improve his 3 point shooting b/c otherwise that is a pretty big overpay, even considering the rise in the cap over the next couple of years. That being said, he is a nice replacement for Batum, and is another athlete to go with the other athletic guys they brought in through recent trades. I would assume they’ll look to resign Aldridge and bring in a couple of shooters, since Henderson and Aminu don’t do that well, and they’re losing Batum and possibly Wes Matthews. They could also really use a backup PG