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For the past few days, Hornets fans have been attempting to come to terms with the fact that the team bypassed the upside of Scoot Henderson for the piece that fits the roster best in Brandon Miller. While many have expressed frustration with it, the focus inside the Hornets building has shifted toward free agency, which gets underway on Friday.
There are a few different questions that they will need to answer, the biggest regarding the future of Miles Bridges. Earlier this month, John Hollinger from The Athletic released an article that laid out the market price of upcoming free agents and had Bridges scheduled to get a deal worth up to $29 million annually.
On Monday, the Mac & Bone Show welcomed Pat Garrity, NBA front office analyst for Stadium, to the show and asked him about the value of Bridges. “I can not see him getting the contract that he was slated to get at the end of last year,” Garrity told the guys. He pointed to the four-year deal that Kevin Porter Jr. got in Houston after wearing out his welcome in Cleveland as a way that the Hornets could structure things if they want to bring him back. “Houston basically gave him a four-year, non-guaranteed contract at a pretty big number and I think that could make a lot of sense with Miles Bridges. Look, you don’t want to reward a guy with a $100 million+ contract given the kind of baggage that he has, but I think there is an argument to be made that it went through the legal process.”
Garrity also addressed the other big question mark that the team will face with restricted free agent PJ Washington. With so many similar players on the market in this free agency cycle, he doesn’t see a major market for Washington this offseason. “No one is going to be putting an offer sheet for him Day 1. I see him as a guy that gives you really good depth. He’s versatile enough to play some power forward, you can slide him over as a small-ball 5 and I’m a believer that he can be a 35% spot-up type flooring spacing, small-ball center. With those types of guys, I think mid-level exception as a starting point is totally reasonable.”
FULL INTERVIEW WITH PAT GARRITY
