8:39pm: Agent Marc Cornstein told Marc Berman of the New York Post (via Twitter) that he will meet with his client tonight to go over all of his options. Cornstein said that a meeting with the Knicks is possible, indicating that nothing is a done deal yet with the enigmatic forward.
7:16pm: Metta World Peace said that he is going to play in China next season in a text to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv (via Twitter). Peace's desire to play in China was reported shortly after he was amnestied by the Lakers,
A source close to the forward told Chris Broussard of ESPN.com earlier today that World Peace's top preference was to join up with the Knicks with the Clippers as a distant second and China third on his wishlist. It now appears that Peace got a tremendous offer to play overseas or was throwing some misdirection to the media in advance of his decision.
World Peace was set to make $7.73MM in 2013/14 and carrying his salary on the books for 2013/14 would have carried major luxury tax implications. The veteran is, of course, known for his tenacious defense, but his play has declined considerably in Los Angeles in recent years. Last season, World Peace averaged 12.4 PPG with 5.0 RPG in 33.7 minutes per contest.
I’ll believe it when I see it! He changes his mind/jokes more then any other athlete.
Eh? I just read reports he was set to meet with teams over the next couple days. I wouldn’t take this seriously.
He would get to keep his entire salary from the Lakers in addition to whatever the Chinese team pays him, right? Whereas if he signs on with another NBA team, he gets less?
To my knowledge, no. He’d be forfeiting that money. If he were to sign with an NBA team he’d get whatever they paid him plus the money the Lakers owe him.
The only way he would have had to forfeit the Lakers money is if another team had put in a claim for him while he was on waivers and he refused to report. Wherever he signs, I believe he’ll wind up giving back a little bit of that money because of the set-off rights defined in the CBA (link to hoopsrumors.com…. He’ll still get to keep the lion’s share of that cash, however.
“Metta World Peace to Play in China” – nope.