One of the most shocking stories of the 2019 free agency was the decision of Nikola Mirotic to leave the NBA. Mirotic, who played with Real Madrid prior to his five-year NBA career, is reportedly signing with Spanish club Barcelona.
That's not the end of a not-so-storybook tenure in the NBA for Mirotic, though. According to Marc Stein in The New York Times, Mirotic had a three-year offer from the Utah Jazz worth $45 million.
On the eve of free agency Saturday, word began to spread that Mirotic was poised to leave the N.B.A. abruptly to go back to the EuroLeague with Barcelona, even though he would give up millions in the process.
The New York Times subsequently reported that Mirotic had a three-year, $45 million promise from the Jazz to leave the Milwaukee Bucks.
Mirotic, however, simply wanted to return to Europe and forgo the millions of dollars in earnings that teams like the Jazz were offering.
That didn't stop the Jazz from cleaning up in free agency though. Utah has been widely praised around the league for the recent acquisitions, trading or point guard Mike Conley earlier in the offseason and signing free agents Bojan Bogdanovic, Jeff Green and Ed Davis.
It's a bit unfortunate they missed out on Mirotic, but nobody knows what could have happened. Mirotic averaged 12.3 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game in 319 career appearances, shooting 42.3 percent from the floor, 35.9 percent from 3-point range and 80.8 percent from the free throw line.
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