Pierre Jackson signs reported 4-year deal with 76ers
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#TheySleep no more. The #FreePierreJackson movement has been rendered unnecessary. The Philadelphia 76ers finally have a point guard.
Pierre Jackson has completed his arduous road to the NBA, signing with the Sixers on Tuesday, he announced on Instagram. As a reminder, he's short as hell; try and guard him, though.
CAPTION: officially a sixer.......... #THEYSLEEP"
The deal is for four seasons and is partially guaranteed, Jackson's agent told Northeast Ohio Media Group. That's a fairly standard arrangement for second-round picks, who aren't bound by the NBA's rookie wage scale.
The 76ers have often guaranteed the first two years of a contract at the league minimum and tacked on two non-guaranteed deals at the end, giving the player security in the short term and giving the team a potential bargain, with little obligation, in the later years of the contract. A four-year minimum contract would pay Jackson $3.5 million if the guaranteed years are picked up.
Despite having no service time to his name, Jackson has signed an NBA contract before. Shortly after being acquired from the New Orleans Pelicans last summer, Jackson suffered a season-ending Achilles injury, one he's only now fully coming back from. Philadelphia subsequently signed him to a one-year contract with $400,000 guaranteed and then waived him.
Related: Why the 76ers decided to sign-and-waive Pierre Jackson
That move was designed not only to take care of Jackson, who was hurt playing for their summer league team, but to potentially buy some loyalty. For the Sixers, who barely made it to the salary floor last season and could afford the $400,000, they've now secured a healthy Jackson for 2015-16 and 2016-17 for cheaper than they would have had him had they signed him to a longer-term deal last summer.
| Pierre Jackson | Scenario A | Scenario B |
|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | $507K | $400K |
| 2015-16 | $845K | $525K |
| 2016-17 | $980K | $875K |
| Total | $2.3M | $1.8M |
Not only is Jackson a cheap solution with some nice upside, but he fills a pretty glaring hole. The only point guards the 76ers have under contract are the recovering Tony Wroten and Isaiah Canaan, hardly a distributor and playing on a non-guarantee deal.
An elite scorer at Baylor, Jackson went on to post the second-highest scoring average in D-League history in 2013-14, putting up 29.1 points and 6.2 assists per game. In two summer league games in the last week, Jackson scored 24 points with six rebounds and four assists as he shook off the rust from a calendar year on the sidelines.