According to reports, unrestricted free agent forward Chandler Parsons has agreed to a contract with the Memphis Grizzlies, which will pay him his maximum of $94 million over 4 years. The contract cannot officially be signed until the end of the NBA’s moratorium period on July 7th.
Tim MacMahon of ESPN first broke the news on Friday afternoon:
Source: Chandler Parsons has agreed to a four-year max deal with the Grizzlies.
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) July 1, 2016
Report: Chandler Parsons Agrees to Contract with Memphis Grizzlies
Parsons’ new contract will take him through the end of the 2019-20 season. No player or team options in the deal have been disclosed yet.
Parsons averaged 13.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game last season for the Dallas Mavericks. He has struggled with injuries ever since he signed with the Mavs in the 2014 off-season. Parsons missed Dallas’s last 13 regular season games, along with the team’s entire first round playoff series loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, due to arthroscopic surgery for a meniscus tear in his right knee. He also missed the end of the 2014-15 regular season, along with all but one of the Mavs’ 2015 playoff games, because of a similar right knee injury. Parsons played in just 61 total games this past season, and 66 in his first year in Dallas.
Despite his troubling knee injuries, Parsons still elected to decline his $16 million player option with the Mavericks and become an unrestricted free agent this summer. Evidently, this paid off for him, as Parsons will now earn a lot more money in Memphis. With the NBA’s salary cap higher than ever, Parsons was justifiably confident that he could cash out this summer, rather than waiting another year. If he had picked up his player option and stayed with the Mavs for the 2016-17 season, Parsons would be risking another major injury that could jeopardize his value on the free agent market. Next year’s free agent crop is deeper, as well, potentially making the value of middle-tier free agents such as Parsons decrease.
Looking forward, Parsons will be one of the main scorers and playmakers on offense for the Grizzlies. He’ll likely start at small forward, but he can also slide to power forward for bench units. In these lineups, Parsons can spread the floor and open up his teammates just by being a shooting threat. Memphis will need Parsons to stay healthy and step up as a key offensive weapon in order to contend for home court advantage in the Western Conference next season. The Grizzlies anticipate that the signing of Parsons will convince free agent point guard Mike Conley to re-sign with the team. If Conley re-signs, then it will turn out to be an excellent off-season for Memphis.
Parsons is going into just his sixth season in the league, during which he’ll be 28 years old. He played the full four years of college basketball for the Florida Gators, giving him less time to earn money in the NBA. Parsons was selected by the Houston Rockets with the 38th overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft. He spent his first three seasons in Houston before becoming a restricted free agent. The Mavericks then signed Parsons to a back-loaded three-year deal that Rockets general manager Daryl Morey called “one of the most untradeable [contracts] ever”. Houston could’ve matched the offer and kept Parsons, but instead allowed the forward to walk and join the Mavs. After that, Parsons played in Dallas for the past two seasons.
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