The Case for a Roger Mason Jr as a FA signing

Roger Mason Jr.

Age: 29

Height: 6-5 / Weight 212

Career Average of 19.2 minutes per game RMJ has done this:

I will lay out his Career vs. Best season stats next to each other respectively. His best season was 2 years ago with the Spurs when he started 71 games and average nearly 31 minutes a contest when Hill was still developing and Manu missed a lot of games that year.

88 GS out of 346 GP.

      Career vs. Best season

FG% = 41% | 43%

FT% = 87% | 89%

3PT% = 38% | 42%

PPG = 7.2 | 11.8

RPG = 1.8 | 3.1

APG = 1.5 | 2.1

SPG = 0.4 | 0.5

BPG = 0.2 | 0.2

TOPG = 0.79 | 1.22

So Roger is one year removed from his best statistical season as an NBA player. Being just 29 years old, he's smack dab in the middle of his prime for a player. The main reason he didn't get much burn last year was due to an early season injury that gave minutes to George Hill who produced and then became an integral part of the Spurs present and future, thus limiting the minutes for Mason.

Things Mason does well: SHOOT. He's also an adequate to good ball-handler and he has nice size to give us that bigger back court to create mismatches. Defensively Mason's no stopper, but he can definitely be a passable defender. The thing I like about Mason is his ball-handling and shooting that would complement Tyreke so well. In fact, I could even see Mason starting at the 2 guard spot next to 'Reke which would allow Cisco to come off the bench at either the 2 or the 3 position.

All in all, I think Mason is a great target to fill out our roster. He's more than a role player, but probably not going to command so exorbitant amount of money. If I were Geoff Petrie, I would target Mason on a 3 year contract with the third year being non-guaranteed. Put out a contract worth 10 million with 7 of it being guaranteed. This would be quite similar to the contract that Raja Bell just signed. Put the first year at 3 and the second year at 4. There's a good chance that 2nd year won't even be paid out due to a potential lockout. That would leave the final year at the Kings discretion at 3 million more. This would also potentially give Mason some potential at "Bird Rights" (but with a new CBA that may go the way of the dinosaur). But overall, Mason gets a solid contract, and we get some reasonable bench depth with a veteran player. 

With Sloan on the roster(could get beat out by a SL guy though) I just don't want to rely on 3 veterans and 2-3 SL guys. I think it's imperative to add at LEAST one veteran guard and keep one to two of the SL guys for cheap insurance(right not I think my preferences are Christmas or Thompson and Rice - Shooter/Defensive specialist and a change of pace PG). Anyway, Roger Mason Jr. hits a lot of needs in a single package and would help get the Kings over the minimum salary basement they need to overcome by around 3 million dollars.

Let's go get him!