Doug McDermott’s current contract
If you’ll recall, McDermott inked a three-year, $22 million contract basically the first night of NBA free agency.
This deal seemed like an overpay to many (myself included) at first. But after some close analysis and critical thinking, we can see how the Pacers and McDermott agreed upon the value they did.
First of all, the salary cap is expected to vault up roughly $7 million next season. That is basically the amount McDermott is making next season. If you want to think of it this way, you could say that the cap jump is paying for McDermott, thus making his deal “free” next summer.
The other notable reason that McDermott got about $7 million per year was noted by Zach Lowe:
A way to look at deals like this: Unless Year 3 has a partial guarantee, Pacers are paying McD about $5M more than he could have gotten on taxpayer mid-level over 3 years. That is going to be the ceiling -- the deal teams w/ more to offer have to beat -- for lots of guys. https://t.co/1WfCdtY4Gs
— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) July 1, 2018
Because of the way the free agency landscape was this summer, acquiring good players often meant paying slightly more than the taxpayer mid-level exception to snag them away from other teams. The Indiana Pacers did exactly that, and now they have one of the best outside shooters in the league.