6:54pm: The Pelicans have officially announced their new deal with Valanciunas, confirming the extension in a press release.
“We’re delighted to be able to continue our relationship with Jonas,” executive VP of basketball operations David Griffin said in a statement. “His deep desire to remain here and his connection to his team, his coaches and the organization represents everything we want to build towards.”
11:19am: The Pelicans and center Jonas Valanciunas have reached an agreement on an extension that will lock him up through the 2023/24 season, agents Aaron Mintz, Mitch Nathan and Drew Morrison of CAA tell Andrew Lopez of ESPN (Twitter link).
According to Lopez, Valanciunas’ two-year extension will be worth $30.1MM. The big man is under contract for $14MM in 2021/22, so he’s now on track to earn $44.1MM over the next three seasons. Because he had been on an expiring deal, Valanciunas was extension-eligible beyond the October 18 deadline that applied to certain other veterans.
Valanciunas averaged a double-double in each of his last two seasons in Memphis, establishing new career highs in 2020/21 with 17.1 PPG and 12.5 RPG in 62 games (28.3 MPG). The 29-year-old isn’t an elite rim protector and doesn’t shoot many three-pointers, but holds his own on defense and can knock down mid-range jumpers.
The Grizzlies dealt Valanciunas to New Orleans in an offseason trade that sent Eric Bledsoe and Steven Adams to Memphis. Having recently acquired Valanciunas, the Pelicans faced extend-and-trade limits in their contract negotiations, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks. They couldn’t offer the former No. 5 overall pick more than a 5% raise on this year’s $14MM salary and couldn’t tack more than two years onto his expiring contract.
Those limits would’ve lifted by the end of the year, but Valanciunas opted for security now rather than waiting to see if he could get a more lucrative deal later in the season or as a free agent in 2022.
This is the second consecutive year in which the Pelicans have traded for a veteran center and then signed him to an extension before seeing him take the court alongside star forward Zion Williamson. The organization will be hoping its commitment to Valanciunas works out better than last year’s deal with Adams did.
As Marks observes (via Twitter), Tomas Satoransky is now the only Pelicans (besides two-way players) who isn’t under contract through at least the 2022/23 season.
So last year the pelicans acquire Steven Adams and extend him before seeing results and then trade him the very next year. Rinse repeat, why David griffin is considered an elite front office man is beyond me.
Agreed. He somehow turned a promising future for the Pelicans into a ticking time bomb. Zion’s injuries are a little out of his control, but the team building decisions are atrocious. All the hype about the collecting of assets (which were extremely overblown to begin with), and then having to use assets to rid yourself of self-inflicted mistakes is a huge L.
Pelicans trade Adams for JV
my grade to Pelicans: A
Adams can’t play offense at all, FT 44%
Pelicans trade Lonzo for Tomas Satoransky, Garrett Temple and a future second-round draft pick
my grade to Pelicans: D
Who considers Griffin Elite? Lol. He sucks.ade awful trades in Cleveland. Got bailed out by LeBron
Memory? Griffin was considered a catch, considered smart, and no great fan of LJ. At the time LJ was hugely unpopular. Nowadays others catch more flak, so no credit to Griffin for that. He was considered wrongly fired previously by boss Gilbert.
I used to be the rare Griffin critic!
Flashes of Steven Adams. Poor Pels fans, David Griffin has gotta go.
JV is much more versatile than Adams is. He’ll fit better with Zion and company.
FlOoR-sTrEtChEr
I see this ending one of two ways.
1. Zion isn’t a Pelican two years from now.
2. He stays and signs the max, but the Pels have to attach a first just to get rid of JV.
44.1 over 3 seasons isn’t a horrible contract for JV. Especially if we see more Point-Zion this year which I think is a strong possibility considering Lonzo is gone and Graham is more of a combo guard.
The difference between Adams and Valanciunas is Adams was of no use on offense other than being probably the 2nd best screener in the league. Valanciunas on the other hand is a solid scorer and rebounder. I think he could be decent from 3 if he upped his attempts as well.
Valens attempted 3 3s first game. He has had decent efficiency on 3s but only about one attempt per game.