Brooklyn was braced to lose Bruce Brown to offers approaching $9 million. They kept their defensive stopper for half that.
Brown – a restricted free agent – is signing a one-year qualifying offer of $4.7 million to return to Brooklyn in a move first reported by ESPN and confirmed by the Post. They also inked James Johnson to a one-year deal for frontcourt depth.
The 24-year-old Brown brought physicality and defense to the backcourt, but played almost every position at some point.
The Nets had been worried about Brown’s market reaching $8 million or perhaps even $10 million after a solid season. He averaged 8.8 points on career-high .556 percent shooting and 5.4 rebounds. Brown played 65 games and started 37 of them, with Brooklyn far better with him on the court. But the market never developed for him as expected.
For perspective, Hoopsrumors tabbed Brown 29th on its list of Top 50 free agents, sandwiched between Knicks center Nerlens Noel (three years, $43 million) and new Bulls guard Alex Caruso (four years, $37 million). He’ll look like even more of a bargain measured up against those deals.
Brown will be an unrestricted free agent after this upcoming 2021-22 season.
A day after keeping starting center Blake Griffin on a veteran minimum, Brooklyn got Johnson, 34, on one as well. The Johnson signing essentially filled the void left when they lost veteran big man Jeff Green. Johnson averaged 9.2 points and 4.1 boards last season in New Orleans, where former Nets assistant general manager Trajan Langdon was the GM.
Johnson is 6-foot-7, 240 pounds and has the defensive positional versatility that the Nets like. He’s mostly a power forward, but he can guard small forwards and even smaller centers, as well.