Wayne Ellington Agrees to 2-Year Deal With Dallas
By Brad Rowland
The NBA’s premium on outside shooting has never been more evident.
In keeping with tradition, Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski broke yet another NBA free agency story via Twitter on Tuesday night when he dropped this:
Dallas has reached agreement on a two-year, $5-million plus deal with free agent guard Wayne Ellington, league sources tell Y! Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 10, 2013
On the surface, Dallas is acquiring some much-needed outside shooting in the absence of OJ Mayo, who has moved on to Milwaukee. However, giving $5 million+ to Wayne Ellington over 2 years seems to be a bit of an overpay in contrast to the previous production in his career.
Ellington has a career PER (player efficiency rating) of just 10.2 and has shot just over 41% from the field in 267 career NBA games. Fortunately for the former UNC guard, his career 38% three-point shooting clip is in high demand and he seems to have parlayed that one singular skill into a big-time payday.
With the wing situation in Dallas being somewhat unsettled at this point, Ellington should compete for regular minutes alongside Vince Carter and Devin Harris, who presumably will play some shooting guard with Jose Calderon in place at the point. He can certainly produce enough value to be worth the minutes, and the Mavs filled a need in relatively cheap fashion.