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Marc Spears from Yahoo! Sports is reporting that Anthony Morrow has reached a three-year, ten million dollar contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Source: Anthony Morrow to sign a three-year, $10 million contract to sign with the Thunder. http://t.co/egnMp2J2HX/s/CuvI #NBA
— Marc J. Spears (@SpearsNBAYahoo) July 12, 2014
Morrow has been a DBB favorite for years (see here, here, or here), and was apparently an early target for the Pistons.
And for good reason - for his career, he shoots over forty-five percent from deep. Last season, Morrow did what he always does and finished third in the NBA in three-point field goal percentage at 45.8% (if you're a glutton for punishment, count the number of former Pistons in the top twenty in that list!) in a reserve role for the New Orleans Pelicans.
In addition to being a consistent knock-down shooter, Morrow has always been undervalued and underpaid relative to his production, and he's a perfect example of the kind of player analytically-minded fans want their teams to add to the roster.
Statistically, he's about as close as you can get to a mirror image of the Pistons' newest perimeter acquisition, Jodie Meeks. Diving a little deeper via stats.nba.com, both of them score about 90% of their points from behind the arc, and about 40% of those are assisted. Meeks is younger, and he's better at getting to the basket and the free throw line, which increases his overall offensive output slightly.
But twice-the-price better? I'm skeptical.
For the final three year's of Morrow's prime, this signing is an absolute steal for the Thunder, and it looks an awful lot like a missed opportunity for the new Stan Van Gundy regime.
Hopefully, Van Gundy and his team have good reasons for locking up Meeks to a relatively pricey deal on the first day of free agency when great value-for-the-dollar targets like Morrow were still on the market.