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Brooklyn Nets: Jared Dudley gets 1-year deal with Los Angeles Lakers

By Phil Watson

Brooklyn Nets Jared Dudley. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)
Brooklyn Nets Jared Dudley. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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The last of the Brooklyn Nets veteran group from last season is gone, as Jared Dudley has reportedly agreed to a 1-year deal with the Los Angeles Lakers.

The trio of veterans who helped stabilize a young Brooklyn Nets team that went from the bottom of the Eastern Conference to a playoff berth appears to have been completely disassembled as Jared Dudley is reportedly getting a one-year deal from the Los Angeles Lakers.

Dudley, who will be 34 on July 10, is a San Diego native who spent one season in Los Angeles previously, when he played the 2013-14 campaign with the Clippers.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski, citing Dudley’s agent, Dudley is getting a one-year, $2.6 million deal to join LeBron James and Anthony Davis in L.A.

That amount will likely be the veteran’s minimum of roughly $2.56 million for Dudley, a 12-year veteran who had previously spent time with the Charlotte Bobcats, the Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, Washington Wizards and Brooklyn as well as two tours with the Phoenix Suns.

Dudley’s reported deal follows DeMarre Carroll getting a two-year, $13 million deal from the San Antonio Spurs and Ed Davis agreeing to a two-year, $10 million contract with the Utah Jazz on Sunday night.

One of the best games Dudley put up last season came in a Dec. 18 win at Barclays Center over the Lakers, when Dudley scored 10 of his 13 points in the fourth quarter as the Nets held off Los Angeles for a 115-110 win that was the sixth of their season-long seven-game winning streak.

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Dudley appeared in 59 games for the Nets last season, missing six weeks after straining his  hamstring in a win over the Atlanta Hawks on Jan. 9 and then spending time shuffling in and out of the rotation the rest of the way.

He averaged 4.9 points and 2.6 rebounds in 20.7 minutes per game while making 25 starts — 20 of those coming in the first 20 games of the season — while shooting 42.3 percent overall and 35.1 percent on 2.6 3-point attempts per game.

But Dudley’s most important contributions may have come off the court, as he assumed the veteran leadership role more so than Carroll or Davis and was constantly in the ears of the younger players to discuss situational awareness and assignments.

While he was out of the rotation, Dudley was leading the guys on the end of the bench in serious five-on-five workouts after practice so those players could stay sharp, per Tom Dowd of NBA.com.

That paid off in a big way on March 19 against the Sacramento Kings, when coach Kenny Atkinson, faced with a 28-point deficit late in the third quarter, threw convention to the wind and put out a five-man unit of D’Angelo Russell, Dudley, Rodions Kurucs, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Treveon Graham.

In other words, it was DLo with each of the four players who started games at the power forward spot.

It worked. Russell went off for 27 of his career-high 44 points in the final period as Brooklyn stormed back to beat the Kings 123-121 on Hollis-Jefferson’s layup with 0.8 second showing on the clock.

In the playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers, Dudley was inactive for Game 2 before providing a physical spark in a Game 3 loss at home and getting starting assignments in Games 4 and 5.

In Game 4, Dudley got into a shoving match with Jimmy Butler after Joel Embiid committed his second hard foul of the series on Jarrett Allen and was ejected.

It was also Dudley who led a players-only film session, per Greg Logan of Newsday, in early ecember after the Nets had lost their eighth consecutive game. Brooklyn ran off seven consecutive victories after that.

Dudley wasn’t a popular acquisition among Nets fans when he was acquired from the Suns on July 20 of last year along with a top-35 protected 2021 second-round pick in exchange for Darrell Arthur, whom Brooklyn had acquired a week earlier from the Denver Nuggets.

The move was seen as general manager Sean Marks renting out some cap space and picking up a future second-round pick to take on the final year of Dudley’s three-year, $30 million contract he had signed with Phoenix in July 2016 — the infamous summer of ridiculous cash.

But Dudley became a fan favorite for his heady play and his clear role in helping the younger players adapt to the grind of a long NBA season.

The one thing Dudley doesn’t have as he enters his 13th season is a ring — in fact, Dudley’s never been on a team that reached the NBA Finals and the furthest he’s ever seen in the postseason is when the Suns went to the Western Conference Finals in 2010.

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Joining forces with James and Davis in Los Angeles may give Dudley his last, best opportunity to add that piece of bling to his collection.

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