July 21: The Hawks have made their contract with Dedmon official, the team announced via press release on its website.
July 11: Free agent Dewayne Dedmon has agreed to a two-year, $14MM deal with the Hawks, according to Shams Charania of The Vertical. Dedmon’s deal includes a player option in the second year.
Dedmon, who turns 28 next month, hit free agency after opting out of the second year of his original two-year pact with the Spurs. As it turns out, Dedmon’s decision paid off as he was set to make just $3.028MM in 2017/18 under his player option. Now, he gets a significant raise and security for two seasons.
Strong play for the Spurs last season allowed Dedmon to opt out and pursue a larger deal. In 76 games (37 starts), Dedmon posted totals of 5.1 PPG and 6.5 RPG in 17.5 minutes per game. Now, the 7’0″ center will provide the Hawks with valuable rim protection and defense next season.
Atlanta general manager Travis Schlenk promised his team would seek help at center earlier this week, and if those comments stand, the team is not done adding.
“We’ll sign a third point guard. We are deciding to we get a veteran guy or do we get a young guy that we think has upside,” Schlenk said. “Do we bring in a couple guys and let them battle it out? We are going to sign a power forward for sure. We’ll sign a center for sure. Probably sign three more big guys so we end up with six.”
Dedmon figures to split time with Mike Muscala, who the Hawks signed last week. With Howard shipped out to the Hornets and Millsap heading to Denver, the Hawks will continue to scour the market for size and skill vacated by those departures.
The departures of Dwight Howard, Paul Millsap, and Tim Hardaway Jr. have created the cap space for the Hawks to pursue Dedmon and other free agents.
spurs east
Budenholzer will do what Carisle did with the Mavs last year and take a very poor roster to the 9-12 pick range
These teams aren’t overpaying players like they did last year.
cap spike meant market was flooded with money.
Dedmon* spelled it right in the title but added a D throughout the article Mark
Underrated pick up
100% disagree. 11th man at best, who shined with spurs, meaning his absolute best case scenario was last year- 5 pt, 6 reb per game. Expect less next year, and trade or buyout year 2.
Gary gtfo
Lol, xlnt point. Well substantiated, thought out, and comunicated .