According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, the Clippers will sign Ky Bowman to a non-guaranteed contract. The former Golden State Warriors two-way player will have the opportunity to make the Clippers’ roster in training camp, just like Derrick Walton Jr. did last season.
Bowman began last season on a two-way contract for the hard-capped Warriors on what was essentially a one-season hiatus from contention, as Kevin Durant left the team in free agency and Steph Curry and Klay Thompson both missed essentially the whole season with injury. As the team narrowly stayed under the hard cap–walking a similar tight role to LAC this season, but without the burden of expectations to win games–players like Bowman saw plentiful minutes.
Originally signed to a two-way contract before being converted to the 15-man roster in February, Bowman made a total of 45 appearances for the Warriors, averaging 7.4 points, 2.9 assists, 2.1 rebounds, 1.0 steals, and 1.6 turnovers in 22.6 minutes. He shot below-average marks of 41.7% from the field and 30.8% from deep–though it’s only fair to put those numbers in the context of him shouldering an unusual amount of the offensive load for an undrafted free agent playing on a two-way contract. Bowman was a 38.8% three-point shooter in college but made just 31.5% of his open and wide-open threes last season, according to Nylon Calculus. His small contributions came defensively and he was a net-negative offensively.
While Bowman signed a multi-year non-guaranteed minimum contract with the Warriors when he two-way was converted, he was released by the team last week in advance of free agency.
Per NBA minimum-salary rules, any player the Clippers add at this stage will count as $1.62M against the hard cap–even veterans of 10+ years who will make closer to $2.6M in real salary. That decreased cap hit only applies to one-year deals, meaning the Clippers couldn’t put a second year on the contract of a player like Nicolas Batum without a much higher cap hit this season (the Lakers had to dump JaVale McGee’s contract in order to do this for Marc Gasol). However, for younger players (like Bowman, with 1 year of NBA experience) whose real minimum doesn’t represent a raise over the $1.62M hard cap hit, I would expect the team to add a second non-guaranteed season to this deal to act as a team option for them to keep him for cheap next season if they like him. His deal should be worth $1,445,697 this season (it will still carry the $1.62M hard cap hit to prevent the team from prioritizing young players over veterans in cost-saving moves) and $1,701,593 next season. He would then be eligible for restricted free agency.
The move–which comes days after the team’s signing of Serge Ibaka–may be an indication that the team intends to prioritize hard cap flexibility for mid-season roster moves over the remaining pool of minimum-salary free agents.
To hear a short discussion of the Clippers’ decision to waive Justin Patton and sign Bowman to this deal, check out the newest episode of LA Clippers News & Updates.
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