The team announced today that they have waived Darko Milicic. Darko’s mother is ill, and he has decided to go home to spend time with her and his family.
“Darko has asked us to release him so he could deal with a personal matter,” said Celtics President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge. “The whole Celtics family wishes Darko and his family well.”
Doc has said that they noticed a drop in Darko’s performance when he heard about his mom’s declining health. Today on CSNNE.com, Jessica Camerato has a nice piece on Darko and how he’s lived his life to help his family.
We all know what the Darko era in the NBA has been. Now’s not the time to rehash that or mock it. We wish Darko and his family well. We will afford him the respect he deserves as a human being dealing with a difficult issue.
Basketball-wise, the Celtics have said they won’t rush to fill his spot. Cap-wise, because Darko was on a minimum deal, there is relatively little damage done. The league pays a portion of all minimum deals, so this doesn’t affect the Celtics ability to offer another player a minimum deal as well. The Celtics also have the bi-annual exception, which means they can offer any portion up to $1.9 million to a player… but that puts them VERY close to the $74 million hard cap… which was imposed the minute they chose to give Jason Terry the full mid-level exception.
It’s not likely that they’ll use that, though, because the veteran minimum for player with 10+ years experience is $1.3 million. Remember, the league pays a portion of that minimum deal… so the cap hit is about half that. The league pays none of the bi-annual. So there’s really very little incentive for the Celtics to use it unless they feel they REALLY need a player and they’re bidding against a team that can only offer the minimum.
Again, we wish Darko and his family well.
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