Blake Griffin gave back $13.3MM in his buyout with the Pistons, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets.
The buyout agreement was officially announced Friday afternoon by the team and the former All-Star forward has been placed on waivers. He’s expected to clear waivers on Sunday and the Nets have emerged as the frontrunners to sign him, Charania adds.
Griffin hasn’t played since February 12 by mutual agreement with the front office. GM Troy Weaver found it impossible to deal Griffin due to the guaranteed money remaining on his contract. Griffin’s contract initially called for a $36.8MM salary this season, with a $38.96MM option for next season, the final year of the deal.
Out of that $13.3MM giveback, $4.15MM will be applied to the Pistons’ cap this season and $9.15MM will be applied to next season’s cap. The resulting cap hits will be in the neighborhood of $32.7MM and $29.8MM, as Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets. More details on how cap hits are adjusted for buyouts of multiyear contracts can be found on our glossary page.
According to The Athletic’s James Edwards III (Twitter link), the Pistons have chosen not utilize the stretch provision for the money owed Griffin. They’d rather take the cap hit of nearly $30MM next season than hamper their future cap flexibility by stretching it across three years.
Weaver has already used the stretch provision on offseason acquisition Dewayne Dedmon (across five years) and on Zhaire Smith (three years).
Brooklyn will be the Favorites for the NBA title
He seriously cant play anymore. Its painful to watch.
his passing skills are still there and can help the bench unit..still a big body nets need
He will help the Nets about as little as Gasol helps the Lakers.
It’s awesome how much the Lakers live rent free in your head bro
Your watching too many tik toks but since I know this saying I guess you do too.. lol
Gasol helps the Lakers more than he’s usually credited for. His offensive play is obviously not there, but he has the best defensive +/- of any Laker who has played at least 5 games. As a result, he is 5th in the team in win shares. I bet Griffin would help the Nets much, much less.
Don’t bother he just has to find a way to bash the Lakers, whether it makes any sense or not
Lakers and Clippers are hard capped
They can’t offer 6 million to Griffin
Yup just what they need – less defense
30M of dead money next year? Tank for Emoni.
No thanks. Kid has immense talent but seems like a complete team cancer. I’m all for the pistons tanking but I’d prefer another prospect.
I can’t believe anyone would want a team to tank.
I’m against tanking as a principle and was happy the Jets won the two games they did, but it makes even less sense in the NBA since the bottom 3 all get the same shot at getting the #1 pick.
So you’re good friends with the kid?
Bo that is B.S. he is a teenager!
He is just mad the kid grew up 10 mins from U of M and still decided to sign with Izzo and MSU instead.
How is he a team cancer? Lol. I’ve watched his Hs team in person and he daps up teammates and looked like a good teammate to me. And his team wins. Grow up dont make false allegations on a teenager when u have no idea what ur talking about.
He is only a name now. His knees are shot and he can’t shot.
Give back 20% of contract remaining salary
I guess that last year Evan Turner gave back 0% of contract salary and force Wolves to pay luxury tax
If I were Rockets I’d trade Wall and 2nd round picks for Griffin
According to true hoops, Heat want to trade for John Wall now
IMO
Heat need to improve the cap room this summer by dumping salary right now
What a stupid move!!! 30 million cap hit for next year for a guy playing on another team. Now we can’t sign a free agent next year. Why not just bring him off the bench for 25 min. And next year trade him as an expiring. I just don’t get it. And do jot give me that “oh you can’t bring a guy like griffen off the bench” non sense! Multiple high profile players have extended themselves off the bench and he will be a bench player for another team anyway!
Trading a 39M expiring player is not that easy. It s*cks to have that dead money next year, but if they managed to save 13M, this is really the right move, because otherwise they would’ve been paying to the last penny for a basically useless player.
He was not useless. They should have brought him off the bench. As opposed to taking a 30 million cap hit for nothing. If he had a problem with being benched he could have turned down his player option and left.
So keeping Griffin would have been better for the Pistons than saving 13M? In what way? Would he have taken them to the playoffs? Keeping an unhappy player that is not going to take you to the next level is never wise… least of all if you lose money by doing it (and the chances of trading him next year were almost nonexistent).
I want $13 million to sign another free agent
I don’t want Griffin
He was never going to turn down the player option man
I actually think Detroit did well that he gave up 13M, that’s more than I would have expected
Trading him wasn’t an option. Playing him as is was totally useless. This is a best case scenario for Detroit, all things considered.
Do billionaires ever have to give back any money? Either trade me or bench me, but give me all my money! Blake got finessed!
Blake doesn’t want to sit. He’s got plenty of money. Now he’s out of exile, he made out ok.
He had the exact choice himself
Blake finessed them when he got all that money in the first place lol.
Griffen most overated player for the last 4 years !
Blake will be a nice piece for a championship contender. He still rebounds, sets crazy screens, and takes charges like it’s his job. Is he the old Blake, no, but on his new squad he won’t have to be.
I honestly dont see how he helps a contender. Passing alone isnt gonna cut it. He plays ZERO defense and only has a slow motion jumper left.
I could see him doing ok in Milwaukee is *limited* minutes, next to Giannis who can help cover up some of his flaws, while Blake would give them a little more spacing and smarts on offense
Clippers might make sense if they weren’t the Clippers
I don’t see how he fits in Brooklyn at all. They need the opposite of Blake to fill out that roster
I can kind of get why Blake doesn’t fit with DET… but what I can’t see neither is why Grant does, like at all!
If you ask me, if all healthy, DET best line up for the future of the franchise would be…
Hayes, Bey, Doumbouya, Stewart & Plummlee.
Basically I think they playin’ Grant so much & him shooting like 25 times a night ahead of playing Sekou is just such a bad move.
Problem is that he chose DET, which no one does, so they have to be good to him, but I would trade him real quick for whatever they can get for him in future assets.
As I laker fan I don’t want him. He can’t shoot, would mess up there Rhythm of our game and seems like he’d give up easily.
I don’t think he will do well. Stats this year way down, ratewise. Stopped playing him because of his fragility which his next team will find out the hard way.
That’s clippers piston trade for griffin was truly franchise altering for both teams.
Clippers received Tobias Harris and a first round pick. They also received cap flexibility by getting griffin off the books.
They drafts SGA with the pick.
They traded Harris for multiple first round picks.
They traded SGA with those first round picks for Paul George.
They traded for Paul George to get Leonard to sign.
They could sign Leonard because they weren’t paying Griffin.
The pistons would not have made those moves but they would have had more draft picks/ young players and not be caught in an awful contract.
This will go down as one of the most lopsided trades ever
We’ll see when Blake joins another team, but I feel his main issue was lack of effort. Watching most every game, he seemed to just be going thru the motions. He’s too Hollywood for Detroit and he got tired of faking it. I think you’ll see a much improved Blake on a team he chooses to play for.
Milwaukee should try for Blake. Boston too, their support guys can’t get any worse
Denver and Portland maybe… even Dallas might make a little sense
The one team that makes NO sense to me? Brooklyn.
Bring him off the bench? Really? LMAO – yeah let’s bring a guy who truly and honestly can’t even dunk anymore off a bench for $30M? No sense being applied here, just an ample amount of Hatoraide being drank up! Blake Griffin gave back over $13M to try and chase a ring, that’s a pretty good sign of someone who I have great respect for. I don’t think many players (especially these days) would simply hand over 13 mil to go to a contender off the bench. I honestly am rooting for you BG, and hope you do get that elusive ring. And a nugget of info to those who think we should’ve hung on to him to play 12 mins off the bench. WAKE UP! Those minutes can now go to players who actually may have a hand in the next actual contending Pistons team. Let these kids play and get their lumps now so just maybe they’ll be ready to contend in a year or two.