Contract Details: Exum, Vezenkov, Stevens

Dante Exum‘s new deal with the Mavericks was initially reported to be a one-year, minimum-salary agreement, but the terms were adjusted between July 1 – when the two sides struck a deal – and today, when it was made official.

According to Tim MacMahon of ESPN (Twitter link), Exum ended up signing a two-year, $6.15MM contract that is non-guaranteed for the second season. It will be worth $3MM in 2023/24 and $3.15MM in ’24/25, with this year’s salary coming out of the Mavericks’ mid-level exception.

Giving Exum a portion of the MLE wouldn’t have been possible if the Mavericks’ offer sheet for Matisse Thybulle had been successful, since Thybulle would have received $10.5MM of the $12.4MM mid-level. Once Portland matched Dallas’ offer for Thybulle, the Mavs’ MLE fully freed up, allowing the team to renegotiate its deal with Exum.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the Mavs also use a chunk of the mid-level to complete their reported agreement with Seth Curry, who was initially expected to be signed using the bi-annual exception. Signing Curry with the MLE would preserve the BAE for 2024/25.

Here are a couple more contract-related notes from around the NBA:

• Sasha Vezenkov‘s three-year contract with the Kings comes in just below $20MM, Hoops Rumors has learned — its exact value is $19,975,609, including a $6,341,464 starting salary in 2023/24. As Michael Scotto of HoopsHype tweets, the first two years of Vezenkov’s deal are guaranteed, while the third is a team option (worth $6,975,609).
• As part of the trade that sent him from Cleveland to the Spurs, Lamar Stevens had his minimum salary partially guaranteed for $400K, tweets Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype. Stevens also had his salary guarantee deadline moved up from January 7 to July 17, so San Antonio will have to decide in the coming days whether or not to fully guarantee the forward’s 2023/24 cap hit.
• In case you missed it, we passed along contract details on a few other recently reported deals on Thursday.