Thunder head coach confirms Gabriel Deck in Oklahoma City
A new face has arrived in Oklahoma City.
Friday night before the matchup with the Wizards, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault confirmed that Argentinian forward has officially arrived and is with the team in OKC.
Shortly after waiving Darius Miller, it was reported that Real Madrid's Gabriel Deck would be signed by Oklahoma City.
Deck averaged 7.3 points per game over the course of his career, spending time in the EuroLeague and Liga ACB, as well as participating in the Olympics and the FIBA World Cup for Argentina.
Most recently, Deck averaged 8.5 points per game for Real Madrid of the EuroLeague, helping them earn a playoff spot. This included a 19-point performance on 3-for-7 from deep in his final game with the team. A solid threat from beyond the arc, he's converted on over 40 percent of his threes.
“He’s here, which is great,” Daigneault said in pregame. “Obviously it took some layers to get him to this point, and we’re excited to have him here. Now he just needs to get cleared from a medical standpoint,”
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Deck's deal is worth $14.5 million over the next four years. For the remainder of this season, he will earn a guaranteed $3.87 million, while years two through four are non-guaranteed. The contract details were confirmed by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
“As soon as he’s cleared to do that, he’s gonna join us and we’re gonna get him in the mix pretty quickly,” Daigneault said. “Because we’re excited about seeing him play — we wanna see him in an NBA game, on our team. It's valuable evaluation time for us and its valuable experience for him.”
Deck still has to clear NBA safety protocols to officially join up with the team, including a seven day quarantine period.
