In his buyout agreement with the Mavericks, veteran wing Klay Thompson gave back approximately $9.8MM of his $17.5MM salary for 2026/27, league sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
Thompson will make back some of that money in his new deal with the Heat, which will reportedly pay him about $13MM over the next two years. However, it certainly sounds as if the 36-year-old was willing to take a pay cut this season to join his new team, which seems closer to contention after trading for Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Mavs were previously about $2MM below the luxury tax line with 16 players under contract. They now have 15 players on standard deals — the regular season limit — and are roughly $11.8MM beneath the tax. That should give Dallas much more flexibility if the front office makes any future trades, whether it’s this offseason or ahead of the February deadline.
We have more on the Mavericks:
Thompson joined the Mavs two years ago expecting to play for a contender, but the team missed the playoffs in each of his two seasons and his tenure was marked by a significant amount of roster turnover — most notably the shocking trade of Luka Doncic, writes Christian Clark of The Athletic. Despite the team’s struggles, Thompson remained professional during his time in Dallas and “never felt sorry for himself,” according to Clark. “*(Warriors coach) Steve Kerr used to tell me,” Thompson said, “‘We don’t get paid because it’s fun. You get paid because it’s really hard and you have to deal with those obstacles that come at you.’*“
Thompson, a Los Angeles native, considered signing with the Lakers in the 2024 offseason, but one reason he picked Dallas over L.A. is because he had concerns about Anthony Davis‘ injury history and availability, a source familiar with Thompson’s thinking tells Clark. As Clark notes, several months later the Mavs traded Doncic for Davis, who suffered an injury — one of four in his time with Dallas — in his first game as a Mav.
Appearing on 1310 The Ticket on Friday shortly after Thompson was waived, general manager Mike Schmitz didn’t divulge any details about what led to the buyout but thanked the prolific three-point marksman for his contributions to the team. “I don’t want to get into too much of the nitty-gritty with internal conversations and all that,” Schmitz said, per Grant Afseth of Dallas Sports Journal. “More than anything, just like I said, thankful for everything Klay has given to the team, the organization, the city, and wish him the best moving forward in the rest of the season.”
Schmitz also discussed the addition of Bosnian wing Tarik Biberovic, who spent the past eight years with Turkish power Fenerbahçe prior to signing a two-year, $6MM deal with the Mavericks this summer, according to Afseth. “He’s a player that has been on the radar for some time, just with his size and his shooting,” Schmitz said. “Our group had identified him as someone who at 6-7, 6-8 can really, really shoot the ball and had an impact at the EuroLeague level at a high level for a really competitive team in Fenerbahçe. And so he’s going to be able to provide some size and some shooting. Looking forward to getting him even more integrated with the group. But yeah, that’s definitely a player that’s been on the radar for some time, not just for myself, but for our whole group.”