Hawks guard Dejounte Murray received a $500K bonus earlier this week after he converted his 123rd three-pointer, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter links).
As Marks notes, the bonus was considered unlikely because Murray had never previously reached that milestone. Atlanta’s 2022/23 team salary will increase by $500K as a result, moving that number just $1.1MM below the luxury tax threshold.
The bonus will also impact Murray’s cap hit for next season, bumping it from $17.7MM up to $18.2MM, Marks adds. The Hawks were tracking the likelihood of the bonus being reached, plus they added Saddiq Bey, which is why they were motivated to make a salary-dump trade at the deadline, according to Marks.
Through 61 games (36.4 MPG) in his first season with Atlanta, Murray is averaging 21.0 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 6.0 APG and 1.5 SPG on .467/.362/.847 shooting. He will be an unrestricted free agent in 2024.
Here’s more from the Southeast:
- Victor Oladipo has had plenty of highs and lows in 2022/23. He missed the first 24 games of the season with a knee injury, but he played in his 35th game on Friday night versus Cleveland and appears on track to play his most games since 2018/19, when he suffered a major quad injury. As Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald writes, Oladipo has struggled with inconsistency on offense, but has played solid defense thus far. “Everybody goes through stuff, everybody goes things,” the Heat guard said. “It’s about how you have resolve and how resilient you are, it really defines who you are as a person and defines who you are as a man. So I’m just going to continue to keep getting better and staying aggressive.”
- The Heat signed a couple of frontcourt veterans last month in Kevin Love and Cody Zeller, which removed Orlando Robinson from the rotation. The rookie center, who is on a two-way deal with Miami, only has four active games remaining as part of his contract, so the temporary plan is to send Robinson back to the G League for playing time, Chiang writes in a subscriber-only story for The Miami Herald. The Heat have enough wiggle room beneath the tax line to convert Robinson to a standard deal if they want to, but the problem is their 15-man roster is full, so they don’t appear to be in any rush on that decision, Chiang notes.
- Mike Bianchi of The Orlando Sentinel (subscriber link) believes it’s time for the Magic to move on from Jonathan Isaac, who underwent season-ending adductor surgery after appearing in just 11 games. Bianchi heaps praise on Isaac off the court and believes he has plenty of potential on it, but says his lengthy injury history makes it too risky to keep him around. Isaac missed all of ’20/21 and ’21/22 while recovering from a torn ACL, and missed a significant amount of time in his first three seasons as well. The 25-year-old’s contract for next season is partially guaranteed for $7.6MM, but it would be “silly” to bring him back and pay him his full $17.4MM salary, according to Bianchi.
“Have an operations analyst come up with a reasonable but unattainable 3 pt goal for Dejountae”
“What if we just make it 1 2 3 – like my email password?
“Yeah okay that works”
Lotta faith in that franchise…
You think it could have been San Antonio who put the bonus in his contract since he signed this contract with them and was traded to Atlanta?
No
Contract terms like bonuses don’t change when players move between teams. They don’t even necessarily become “likely” or “unlikely.”
Take whatever issues you want with Atlanta, this one isn’t on them and doesn’t fit your narrative.
Atlanta had to agree with it though or they wouldn’t have taken him…sooo
You’re grasping at straws. They didn’t set the 123 point. You’re actually trying to call them incompetent for agreeing to a trade for a player with that particular stipulation in his contract? Talk about nitpicking.
Details win championships.
Murray is going to get paid. I wished the Knicks had traded for him when they had the chance. If he were to land with the Clippers in free agency, that would be one hell of a team on both sides of the court. I’d be clearing out the cap space if I were them and pair him with Leonard and George.