In a move that was widely expected, Clippers guard Austin Rivers has elected not to exercise his player option for the 2016/17 campaign and he will hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent this offseason, Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated reports (on Twitter). The combo guard was set to earn $3,344,106 next season, but with the cap set to increase significantly, Rivers obviously believes he can improve upon that figure.
The 23-year-old made 67 appearances for Los Angeles this past season, averaging 8.9 points, 1.9 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 21.9 minutes per outing to accompany a shooting line of .438/.335/.681. Rivers, the No. 10 overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, has career averages of 7.4 points, 1.9 rebounds and 2.0 assists through 273 contests.
Team president and coach, Doc Rivers, who is Austin’s father, has said that he wants to re-sign as many of the Clippers’ free agents as possible, which ostensibly includes the younger Rivers. Los Angeles doesn’t have much in the way of cap flexibility this summer, having nearly $77MM in salary already on the books against a projected cap in the range of $92MM-$95MM for 2016/17. Austin is represented by ASM Sports, whom he hired last July. He was previously represented by Relativity Sports, who negotiated Rivers’ two-year deal for nearly $6.455MM last July.