Washington Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld finally saw the paperwork come through. On Thursday, the Wizards received restricted free agent Otto Porter’s offer sheet from the Brooklyn Nets. It’s the expected max offer, with a few unusual clauses.
Wizards fans were refreshing Twitter all-day Thursday, waiting for more news on Otto Porter. Although Porter had agreed to a max offer sheet with Brooklyn on Wednesday, the paperwork hadn’t yet been sent to Washington. Without proof of a deal, the Wizards front office continued patiently waiting.
Thursday night, the news finally broke. Washington had finally received the offer sheet.
Washington has received Otto Porter's $106M offer sheet from Brooklyn, league source tells ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 6, 2017
The amount ($106 million) and years (four) were just as expected. What wasn’t were the special clauses that were included in the deal. As with the money, any clauses included Washington must match and include in Porter’s contract if they retain the 24-year old small forward.
If the Wizards match, Otto Porter will have one-year to veto any trade and cannot be acquired by Brooklyn.
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) July 6, 2017
So Porter will apparently have a no trade clause for a year. This makes flipping Porter for a player like DeMarcus Cousins at the trade deadline difficult. The Wizards could make a deal around Kelly Oubre Jr., but this would further complicate the team’s abilities to move players and assets.
Porter will also have a trade kicker of 15% (also known as “Poison Pill”) which could entice him to accept a trade, but it could also discourage other teams from agreeing to a deal.
The Nets also threw an interesting caveat in that I’ve never seen before. Putting in a stipulation that Porter receives 50% of his season salary by October 1st every year.
The deal is technically a 3+1 deal, as Porter will have a player option for the fourth year. It’s likely we’re back in this position in 2020, except with Porter as an unrestricted free agent. Depending how he performs, and how the cap changes, Porter may only be in Washington for three more years.
We know that the Wizards will match the offer, but they won’t go about making that quick it seems, taking up to 6 days.
The Wizards can take up to 48 hours to match, up to another 48 to have Porter in for a physical and another 48 to pass him on his physical. https://t.co/G9niEoqZxu
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) July 7, 2017
Yahoo Sports declared the back-and-forth between the Wizards and Nets as a “petty war”. They certainly have some smart writers over there.
Nets General Manager Sean Marks was waived by the Wizards back in 2010, before even appearing in any preseason or regular season games. Maybe he still holds some disdain for President Ernie Grunfeld for how that situation played out.
More likely though, the Nets actually want to keep Porter and are doing everything in their power to dissuade the Wizards from matching the deal.
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Either way, Washington and the 28 other teams don’t like Brooklyn’s games. Unfortunately there’s not much the Wizards can do about it.