The Nets will not exercise their $5MM option on Garrett Temple, Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports tweets.
Temple will become an unrestricted free agent, while Brooklyn will see its projected luxury tax bill drop by more than half. The Nets’ payroll goes from $143.4MM to $138.4MM, ESPN’s Bobby Marks tweets, which reduces their projected tax bill from $18MM to $8.7MM.
The three-team, agreed-upon deal that will send guard Landry Shamet to Brooklyn will add another $2.1MM to the team’s payroll. The front office is also hoping to re-sign coveted free agent swingman Joe Harris. Those considerations led its decision to let Temple walk.
Temple, 34, averaged 10.3 PPG, 3.5 RPG and 2.5 APG in 62 regular-season games with the Nets and should be able to find another opportunity with a playoff contender. He started 35 games during the regular season and all four of the team’s postseason games.
He might find an opportunity riding the bench. He got a lot of minutes purely because of injuries.
Solid bench player, lot of good player on market this winter