The Spurs have officially waived DeMarre Carroll, the team announced today in a press release. The move opens up a spot on the team’s 15-man roster.
As we outlined on Monday, Carroll’s agent Mark Bartelstein successfully negotiated a buyout with the Spurs, despite the fact that the veteran forward still had two years on his contract beyond 2019/20, including a fully guaranteed salary for next season. The exact terms of that buyout haven’t yet been reported.
Carroll intends to sign with the Rockets once he becomes a free agent. Now that his release from San Antonio is official, the 33-year-old is on track to clear waivers on Thursday afternoon, so he could theoretically be in uniform for Houston by the time the club faces Golden State on Thursday evening.
Coming off a couple solid seasons in Brooklyn, Carroll signed a three-year, $21MM deal with the Spurs during the 2019 offseason. However, he barely played at all in San Antonio and wasn’t effective in the limited minutes he did see. In 15 games (9.0 MPG), he averaged 2.2 PPG and 2.1 RPG with a .310/.231/.600 shooting line.
It’s not clear yet what the Spurs plan to do with their newly-opened roster spot. The team isn’t required to carry a 15th man, but figures to fill that opening at some point before the end of the regular season.
If the Spurs don’t get at least a year of salary back in the buyout I don’t see why you do this. Unless you literally hate him and can’t find a place to play him which I don’t think either is the case.
They weren’t going to use him and keeping a 33 year old on the bench for a younger guy when you could do the nice thing and let the guy walk at a chance for a chip. Good player relations for future FA could also be a factor.
Not sure why the signed him in the first place … they traded Davis Bertans to clear up cap space for Carroll and Morris and neither of those options worked out
How many times does this need to be explained? The Spurs traded Bertans after Morris agreed to terms. Then Morris backed out and signed with NY leaving them without either player, forcing them to sign Carroll..
The chronology for the Spurs was:
1. Agree to sign Carroll using MLE
2. Find out Morris is also willing to sign an MLE-type deal.
3. Trade Bertans in order to acquire Carroll via sign-and-trade so they can save the MLE for Morris.
4. Morris backs out.
5. They use the MLE on Lyles instead.
The Bertans trade was necessary once they agreed to sign both Carroll AND Morris. If they’d just wanted to sign one of the two, they could’ve kept Bertans.
HWM do some research. “How many times” indeed. Carroll was first not last.
Also involved was the Rudy Gay question but it’s all murky enough already, esp with these varying comment-section claims.
Thanks Luke for trying. Lyles should not be ignored in evaluation since he is the Morris replacement of record. He is a regular starter with mixed results, PER 12.
He was great for Brooklyn last year and it would’ve been nice to bring him back, but I get that the fit is better in Houston.