July 6: The signing is official, according to the team’s website.
“The Rockets bring out the best in me,” said Nenê. “I love the entire organization from my teammates and coaches, to management and ownership. We have great leader in James Harden and will continue to work hard to bring another championship to Houston.”
July 2: After an earlier misstep, Nene has reached an agreement to stay with the Rockets, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com. The deal will pay him $11MM over three years, a source tells Wojnarowski.
The veteran center had agreed to a four-year, $15MM deal with Houston early on Saturday, but that was voided because of an age restriction. Because he will turn 35 before the season starts, Nene is restricted to a three-year contract under the over-38 rule.
Nene was reported to be upset by the loss of one year and about $4MM off his negotiated deal and was “back to square one” on Saturday, ready to talk with other teams. The maximum amount the Rockets can pay Nene using his Non-Bird rights is $10,954,440 over three years, so it appears the two sides struck a deal for those terms.
The Rockets appear poised to use their mid-level exception on P.J. Tucker and draft-and-stash prospect Zhou Qi, so if they use Non-Bird rights to bring back Nene, they’d still have their bi-annual exception available, along with some trade pieces.
Appearing in 67 regular season games for the Rockets last season, Nene averaged 9.1 PPG and 4.2 RPG in just 17.9 minutes per contest, shooting 61.7% from the floor. His season came to a premature end when he suffered a left adductor tear halfway through Houston’s second round series against the Spurs.
Glad to see they got a deal done after all!
First time I saw the “over-38” rule enforced Lmao. They should enforce it for Near Max / Max contracts not meaningless, insignificant four year $15M contracts that expire a month past the player’s 38th.
Well not many players close to 38 are getting near max/max deals anymore. Kobe was probably the last one. LeBron probably would’ve been the next one if not for this rule.
Something about this over 38 rule just doesn’t seem right. If the Rockets offered him the money and he accepted, then the contract should be honored. The league refusing to honor it because of his age, could be grounds for a successful discrimination lawsuit.
Settle down mother Theresa
I agree that it should be honored, the Rockets should be held accountable for their actions, but lets settle down about the discrimination lawsuit. Besides the fact that its pretty stupid, it wouldn’t stand a chance because its written into the CBA which act as the laws for the league. If the union and owners come to an agreement on something like this to be put into the CBA, it likely overrules normal age-restriction laws in the country.