As part of a buyout agreement with the Jazz, veteran guard Russell Westbrook gave up exactly $1.7MM, according to Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter link). Utah waived Westbrook on Saturday.
The buyout reduces Westbrook’s cap hit on Utah’s books from $4,027,525 to $2,327,525, giving the team a little extra salary cap flexibility. No team currently has more cap space than the Jazz, who still have about $33MM in available room.
The Jazz also reportedly received $4.3MM in cash from the Clippers in their trade for Westbrook, so despite being on the hook for about $2.33MM of the guard’s salary, they’ll come out nearly $2MM ahead from a financial perspective.
Westbrook will also come out ahead, since he’s reportedly on track to sign a minimum-salary contract with the Nuggets. That deal with Denver will pay him $3,303,771, increasing his total earnings for the 2024/25 season to $5,631,296, exceeding what he would have made if he had remained on his original $4.03MM contract.
As for the Clippers, they presumably could’ve reached a similar buyout agreement with Westbrook, but trading him to Utah allowed them to give Kris Dunn a more lucrative contract than they otherwise would’ve been able to. Using Westbrook’s $4MM+ outgoing salary for matching purposes, L.A. acquired Dunn via sign-and-trade, giving him a starting salary of $5,168,000 on his new three-year deal.
Westbrook is on track to serve as Jamal Murray‘s primary backup and play a significant role in Denver this season. Nikola Jokic reportedly advocated for the addition of the former MVP.
Good for WB..,I think he will definitely help Denver’s 2nd unit and play significant minutes in crunch time…
He has accepted his role off the bench and realizes what he can do and not do to help a contending team…
And if Jokic vouched for u that means u are doing something right.,,
GL Westbrook this year and I hope u get that Chip u deserve…
If you’re Russ why take anything less than your full contract? Not like he had any reason to help out the Jazz and there’s 0% chance that Utah would have started the season with him on the roster. Seems odd.
They could have hung onto him for months, waiting for someone to trade for him. He doesn’t care about a million bucks.
Because its a win win deal for both parties, if he refused to take any cut they could have just held onto his contract and told him to stay home. This way he makes extra money and gets to go to a competitive team that wants him.
Jazz owner Ryan Smith tries to squeeze every penny out of that franchise in order to boost his private assets, so much became clear since the guy took over. He’s the NBA’s slumlord version.
The Jazz have the league’s lowest payroll for a while now. They’re currently trying to reach the NBA salary floor. Taking on Westbrook’s buyout is part of these efforts of getting to that minimum threshold.
You sure about that? For every Jazz win since the 2020-21, the Utah Jazz/Smiths provided a full, four-year scholarship to students from an underrepresented group.
Maybe some merch is a bit overpriced, but they’ve also switched their TV deal to the free KJZZ over-the-air channel, as well as the Jazz+ streaming service.
That doesn’t sound like a “slumlord” to me.
I think is makes more sense for Westbrook to go back to OKC or ORL. In OKC he can be their back up point guard and add that grit to a young team while maybe help them get to the Finals.
In Orlando he can serve the same role as Fultz did and provide the needed leadership they need.