How is Donatas Motiejunas still unsigned?
Here we were thinking that once the big restricted free agency dominoes had fallen, this would be the Summer of No Holdout. Granted, it was easier for players to obtain desired salaries this year with their teams pairing the built-in advantage re-signing them with the astronomical salary cap spike. Andre Drummond and Bradley Beal agreed to deals early, and even lesser-known guys like Evan Fournier, Jordan Clarkson, and just about every single player on the Portland TrailBlazers went off the market before the first week of July was up.
Pressure from hungry rebuilding teams like the Brooklyn Nets, and agents salivating at the sight of new TV deals, greased the wheels for what became a quick free agency process. After Kevin Durant made his decision on the Fourth of July, almost every remaining player was snatched up by teams eager to take a relaxing two month break before camp.
Yet our fantasies of a holdout-less summer were dashed by the peculiar and ongoing battle between the Houston Rockets and Donatas Motiejunas, the team’s skilled young Lithuanian big man. After rescinding the qualifying offer to fellow frontcourt youngster Terrence Jones, it appeared GM Daryl Morey and the Rockets had made their choice between the two. But restricted free agency is the shrub that pricks all passers by, and the Motiejunas situation this summer failed to become an exception.
Without the leverage of interest from other teams so late in the summer, and the Rockets still maintaining matching rights for three days, Motiejunas has treaded water. He has seen his team replace his skillset with the likes of Ryan Anderson and Nene Hilario, and as is always the case with the Rockets, there are youngsters waiting in the wings; Sam Dekker, Clint Capela, and Montrezl Harrell are ready to produce for this squad. There is no easy fit for Motiejunas and the Rockets, which begs the question of how his market simply evaporated throughout July and August.
Unproven players like Allen Crabbe and Bismack Biyombo garnered massive offer sheets from teams with varying needs over Motiejunas with no apparent reason other than their relatively good health. With Houston having already attempted to deal D-Mo at the trade deadline, it’s shocking that no team emerged willing to overpay slightly for a guy that started the majority of the 2014-15 season for a team that went to the Western Conference Finals.
His skills are clear and valuable: he can shoot threes at a reasonable rate (47 of 124 on catch-and-shoot threes in 2014-15), make plays out of the post and from the elbow, and score from almost anywhere. He is the best example in recent years of a skilled European big man who proved more than was expected and provided near instant value.
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Per Red94.net, the only teams still able to afford a contract for Motiejunas over his $3 million-plus qualifying offer are Indiana, Minnesota, Utah, Phoenix, Brooklyn, Denver, and Philadelphia. We can quickly scratch Utah, Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Denver off the list, who have their own cores of very young, very talented big men. That leaves Minny and Indy, who have franchise centerpieces at center already, and Brooklyn.
Brooklyn is the team most ideal for Donuts; they need depth behind the efficient down-low scoring prowess of Brook Lopez, and Motiejunas can be exactly that at full strength. He has the upside to fit into the more versatile scheme that new GM Sean Marks appears eager to play. Imagining him picking-and-popping with LeVert, Whitehead, and Lin is tantalizing, and an idea Marks has surely thought of.
Perhaps it truly is the combination of health and the fear that players like D-Mo (and his replacement Ryan Anderson, for that matter) have simply lost value in the NBA. For someone as skilled and versatile as Motiejunas, it’s worth several million to bet that’s not true. Someone, in Brooklyn or elsewhere, would be well served to save the league from its latest restricted free agency circus and bring the slick Lithuanian back from his summer spent deposed in Morey’s island of unwanted toys.