Heat guard had an amazing, gross reaction to $50M contract offer
A great many sports fans, whether die-hard NBA followers or casual observers, experienced pretty serious sticker shock during the opening days of free agency, as players who aren’t exactly household names (well, outside of Russia) started signing deals eight-figure deals that dwarf the top paydays of some of the greatest NBA players of even the very recent past. As it turns out, though, even some of the players receiving those deals felt the shock, too … not to mention some unfortunate, disquieting aftershocks.
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From Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel:
So what was Tyler Johnson’s reaction when he heard he was going to receive a four-year, $50 million contract?
“I threw up a couple of times when I heard the number go out there. I was in shock. I even lost a little bit of weight, because just the anxiety of going through that whole process and not knowing where I was going to be,” the Miami Heat guard said Monday during a team-sponsored water-safety event at Bucky Dent Water Park.
Well, sure. Going from undrafted to $50 million in two summers’ time is the kind of rocket ride to success that can cause motion sickness.
Johnson owed his uncertainty to the nausea-inducing number, which came courtesy of the Brooklyn Nets, who presented the 24-year-old combo guard a $50 million offer sheet on the third day of free agency. Nets general manager Sean Marks made the lucrative offer, which included “poison-pill” guarantees of $18.8 million and $19.6 million in the final two years of the deal, in hopes that the Heat — who picked up the undrafted Fresno State product in the summer of 2014, added him to their D-League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, and helped develop him into a versatile young backcourt piece for the senior club — would be too cap-strapped down the line after maxing out center Hassan Whiteside, and too wrapped up with their pursuit of top free agent Kevin Durant and attempts to re-sign franchise legend Dwyane Wade, to exercise their rights in restricted free agency and match the offer sheet.
Unfortunately for Marks, Durant chose the Golden State Warriors and Wade chose the Chicago Bulls (which might have been Pat Riley’s plan all along). After Johnson actually signed the Nets’ offer sheet, Heat owner Micky Arison reportedly told team president Pat Riley that he preferred swallowing those poison pills to losing a player the team had developed and that they really like. That’s how a guy with all of 73 career NBA appearances who averaged 8.7 points per game last year wound up in line to be the Heat’s third-highest-paid player in the fall of 2018 … even though, thanks to the presence of impressive rising sophomore Josh Richardson and the addition of veteran shooting guard Dion Waiters, it’s no sure thing that he’s even going to be Miami’s starter at the two come opening night.
“I was like almost 100 percent sure I was going to end up in Brooklyn,” Johnson said Monday, according to Winderman. “But, yeah, it’s an incredible feeling. And I’m excited to get back to work.”
Well, it sounds like a better feeling than the one Johnson had after he first heard about his life-changing offer, at least.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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