Charlotte Hornets: Is Three Years, $21 Million Too Much For Jeremy Lamb?

Rumor had it this weekend that Jeremy Lamb and the Charlotte Hornets were nearing a deal that would keep the fourth-year player from entering restricted free agency this coming offseason.

Sure enough, Lamb jumped into the headlines Monday morning by signing a three-year, $21 million deal with the Hornets that will keep him in North Carolina until the 2019 offseason.

At a glance, almost any deal that isn’t huge money and massive overpayment can be justified with the huge swell the NBA’s salary-cap is due to undergo next year and the year after (estimated $89 million in 2016-17, $108 million in 2017-18). Just because it can be justified, doesn’t mean it should be, though.

The timing itself is strange as well, considering the fact that players like Andre Drummond of the Detroit Pistons and Harrison Barnes of the Golden State Warriors have both agreed mutually with their teams to put off contract talks until this coming offseason. This is mutually beneficial, as it allows both players to become restricted free agents, and it allows the teams added financial flexibility to utilize cap space in pursuit of free agents.

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There’s no reason to rush Lamb’s extension, and the Hornets could have allowed the market to set a more reasonable price for Lamb.

The nature of restricted free agency is such that a player’s home team has the right to match any offer that other teams may present that player. That rule is called the Right of First Refusal.

Considering it’s unlikely any other team would be likely to pay Lamb $7 million per year, there’s virtually no point in the Hornets trying to beat the rush and hinder their own cap flexibility.

To this point in Lamb’s career, he has played 150 NBA games, starting eight of them for an injury-depleted Oklahoma City Thunder squad last season. He averages seven points per game, 2.1 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 0.5 steals per game in his career. He is a 42.2 percent shooter from the floor and shoots 35 percent from the three-point line.

Lamb came into the NBA with promise, being drafted 12th overall by the Houston Rockets in the 2012 NBA draft, but he has yet to deliver.

This $21 million dollar deal is money that the Hornets could have spent in a wiser fashion.