Before even playing a regular season game for the Nets, Taurean Prince has been locked up for an additional two years by the club.
Prince’s agent, Steve Heumann of CAA Sports, tells ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link) that the forward has agreed to a two-year, $29MM extension with Brooklyn. The Nets have put out a press release confirming that the move is official.
The acquisition of Prince was somewhat overlooked during a busy Nets offseason — he was part of the return in a trade that sent Allen Crabbe and two first-round picks to Atlanta. In addition to clearing the cap space necessary to land both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, that deal netted Prince, who’s coming off a couple solid seasons with the Hawks.
Since the start of the 2017/18 campaign, Prince has averaged 13.9 PPG and 4.3 RPG with a .431/.387/.834 shooting line in 137 regular season games (29.3 MPG). The 25-year-old was Brooklyn’s leading scorer in the preseason, knocking down 16-of-23 attempts from beyond the arc. While he won’t match that 69.6% rate in the regular season, the Nets will count on him to space the floor on offense.
Although he hasn’t been with the franchise for long, Prince already appears to be sold on Brooklyn. He told Brian Lewis of The New York Post last week that he was hoping to sign a rookie scale extension.
“I want to be here as long as I can. And whatever happens, happens, but I’m just happy to play good basketball,” Prince said. “One hundred percent, yeah. For sure. This is the best organization I’ve been in.”
With Prince on the books for 2020/21, the Nets now project to have at least $135MM in team salary next year, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN.com. That doesn’t take into account team options for Garrett Temple and others, or cap holds for possible first-round picks and free agents like Joe Harris, so Brooklyn’s roster could get quite expensive if the team wants to keep it together.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Good signing. Prince is a nice young SF that can score and play D. His deal expires on a good free agency with lots of talent available.
He’s going to be a really solid glue guy on this teams. doesn’t do one thing great, but does everything very well
Mistake. There is a reason Prince was abandoned by Atlanta, a team that is supposed to be worse in the EC. My confidence in the Nets is slipping.
Prince’s stats are all below average, including on/off & BPM (both ~minus 2), minus 10 netRtg, and 65 games per year. That kind of player should be durable. The only positive is 3pt%.
He was found to be disconnected on defense in Atlanta, while the Nets thrived on switching. But forget all that I guess.