Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
With many non-guaranteed contract decisions forthcoming this summer, one player on the fence for the Brooklyn Nets front office may be Cincinnati product Sean Kilpatrick.
Signing Cincinnati shooting guard Sean Kilpatrick to a 10-day contract on Feb. 28, 2016 was the very first move for Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks.
At the time, Kilpatrick was the leading scorer in the NBA's Developmental League, playing for the Delaware 87ers, an affiliate of the Philadelphia 76ers. Kilpatrick was quite the offensive threat, averaging 26.4 points on 18.8 shots per game. He was also stroking it at 47.2 percent from the field.
Back in March of last year, former ESPN.com Nets reporter Mike Mazzeo had this to say when detailing Kilpatrick's contract.
"Nets guard Sean Kilpatrick signed a three-year contract that is fully guaranteed for the rest of this season and next season, his agent, Zach Kurtin, told ESPN.com. The rest of this season is prorated at $221,000 — more than the minimum. Kilpatrick will get a fully guaranteed $980,000 minimum salary in 2016-17 and has a non-guarantee of $1.05 million in 2017-18 which kicks in fully if he's not waived by June 30, 2017."
Now we are at a fork in the road when evaluating the play of Sean Kilpatrick. Despite coming out of the gate strong with the Nets last season, Kilpatrick still was fairly productive offensively, averaging 13.1 points 4.0 rebounds and 2.2 assists in just over 25 minutes per game.
There's no doubt Kilpatrick is an offensive specialist – it's what FiveThirtyEight's CARMELO system categorized him as. When evaluating weighted averages on Kilpatrick for the past few seasons of his career, he's in the 75th percentile or above in True Shooting, free throw, three-point frequency and usage percentages.
The main issue for Kilpatrick comes at the defensive end of the floor, an issue that has Nets fans a bit hesitant about retaining Kilpatrick beyond this season. His rebounding, block, steal, and defensive plus/minus percentages are all below the 25th percentile, proving he is a tremendous liability on the defensive side of the ball.
FiveThirtyEight continues to model Kilpatrick's Offensive and Defensive plus/minus over the course of the next five seasons. However, while his defensive plus/minus is a steady -2.9 to -2.6, his offensive production begins to decline, making him a near non-factor offensively by 2022.
The model continues to argue that Kilpatrick's best days are behind him, posting a net offensive plus/minus of 1.4 this past season in Brooklyn.
#Nets have a decision to make come June 30th re: Sean Kilpatrick for next season. What should General Manager Sean Marks do?
— Christopher Lavinio (@ChrisLavinio) May 15, 2017
So, with June 30 as the trigger date, just eight days after the 2017 NBA Draft on June 22 in New York, the decision looms in the Nets front office as they may be looking at adding a scoring punch off the bench in the draft — or, even risk it and go into free agency looking for someone with a knack for scoring the basketball.
One issue may arise is not finding someone as cheap as Kilpatrick is this offseason, at just $1.5 million, the tail end of that three-year deal he signed in March of 2016.
But, Sean Marks will evaluate everything: incoming draftees, European players, D-Leaguers, etc., looking for another diamond in the rough. The question remains, will Kilpatrick be suiting up for Brooklyn come October of 2017?
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