{"id":3244,"date":"2017-01-01T16:37:25","date_gmt":"2017-01-01T21:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=3244"},"modified":"2017-01-01T16:37:25","modified_gmt":"2017-01-01T21:37:25","slug":"pelicans-set-to-sign-donatas-motiejunas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2017\/01\/01\/pelicans-set-to-sign-donatas-motiejunas\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Pelicans Set to Sign Donatas Motiejunas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/category\/pelicans\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>New Orleans Pelicans<\/strong><\/a> are on the verge of agreeing a deal to sign <strong>Lithuanian<\/strong> big man <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/motiedo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donatas Motiejunas<\/a><\/strong>. The former <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/category\/rockets\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Houston Rockets<\/strong><\/a> power forward will sign a one-year veteran minimum deal. Motiejunas is expected to earn roughly $600k throughout the one-year deal. Small forward <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=willire01,willire02&amp;search=Reggie+Williams&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reggie Williams<\/a><\/strong> has been waived, to make room for the incoming Motiejunas.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Pelicans are in the process of finalizing a one-year deal with Donatas Motiejunas at the veteran minimum, according to league sources.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheSteinLine\/status\/815622112614301697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>New Orleans Pelicans Set to Sign Donatas Motiejunas<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Motiejunas, 26, will be glad to finally return to basketball, after a turbulent off-season. Unable to reach a deal in Houston, Motiejunas has found a home at last. Negotiations lasted an age in Houston, at one point Motiejunas even thought he was on his way to <strong>Brooklyn<\/strong>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/category\/nets\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Nets<\/strong><\/a> made a contract offer, but the Rockets matched Brooklyn&#8217;s offer before the deadline. After further discussions with Houston, the Rockets agreed to release Motiejunas.<\/p>\n<p>Motiejunas played 37 games last season in Houston, averaging 6.2 points and 2.9 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>Reports suggested that if Motiejunas was going to join any team, it would have been the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/category\/lakers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Los Angeles Lakers<\/strong><\/a>. The Lakers brought Motiejunas in for an &#8220;audition&#8221;\u00a0earlier this week, but no deal was offered. So with Motiejunas heading to New Orleans, <em>what should Pelicans fans expect?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Motiejunas is a 7-foot power forward, capable of playing center if necessary. Drafted in 2011,\u00a0Motiejunas would go on to play 214 games in four seasons with the Rockets. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/davisan02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Davis<\/a><\/strong> is clearly the main man in New Orleans, so this signing shouldn&#8217;t affect his minutes in any way. Pelicans fans can expect Motiejunas to play minimal minutes alongside rookie <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/diallch01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cheick Diallo<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s difficult to understand why the Pelicans needed to make this move with so many bigs on the roster. Pelicans fans can expect Motiejunas to either become a solid rotation player, or a low minutes bench warmer.\u00a0When you break this move down, it makes more financial sense than basketball sense.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 395px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/524334188\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 150.379747% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/524334188?et=dsoBzudCTWt1IpVIuU1W0A&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=nD-UfbdjyKmIIjoyojjiua00P4YgFcQFFYwKWTzguXA=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"395\" height=\"594\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Orleans Pelicans are set to sign former Houston Rockets power forward Donatas Motiejunas, to a one-year veteran minimum deal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":638,"featured_media":3260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,62,3],"tags":[65,638,333,96,202,220],"class_list":["post-3244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pelicans","category-nba","category-news","tag-basketball","tag-donatas-montiejunas","tag-houston-rockets","tag-nba","tag-nba-news","tag-new-orleans-pelicans"],"modified_by":"Harrison Marcus","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/638"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}