According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, free agent backup center Mason Plumlee is signing a three-year contract with the Detroit Pistons.
The deal is currently slated to pay Plumlee $25 million over the course of three years, but no word if the contract has any options on the end of it.
Plumlee has been a member of the Nuggets organization for three and a half years, ever since being acquired in the trade that sent Jusuf Nurkic to Portland. Since then, Plumlee has settles in as a quality backup center who offered the Nuggets many of the same traits that Nikola Jokic does: excellent passing, unselfishness, quality rebounding, and effort.
Plumlee averaged 7.6 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 2.5 assists in his 19.9 minutes per game with the Nuggets. He played 244 games, the most of any team on his previous stops in the NBA with Portland and Brooklyn where he was drafted..
The Nuggets were set up with a difficult financial picture this offseason. With multiple free agents left to re-sign and limited spending power, the Nuggets decided to draft Zeke Nnaji at 22, a big man out of Arizona who projects to spend some time at backup center this year despite being a rookie. There just wasn’t enough money for the Nuggets to bring back Plumlee while making sure the rest of their needs were taken care of at the same time.
We wish the best for Mason Plumlee in Detroit! May he reverse dunk everything at the rim and have a bunch of fun with the team he chose.
