top of page

2024 Free Agents - Chimezie Metu

Summary
During his first two seasons in the league, Metu never got real minutes with the Spurs, playing in less than 100 minutes of non-garbage time each season, according to Cleaning the Glass. After joining Sacramento, Metu got  legitimate minutes with the Kings - particularly in '21-'22, as he averaged just over 20 minutes per game and even started 20 games. However, he fell back in the rotation in '22-'23, playing only 10 minutes per game, and received inconsistent minutes in '23-'24 for the Suns and Pistons.

Since the Kings had approximately seventeen centers on the roster, Metu played most of his minutes at power forward in '21-'22, but that changed in '22-'23 as he was back to playing center and surpassed Richaun Holmes as the primary backup. Metu has some ability to stretch the floor, but has only hit 30% from three on just over 275 career attempts. He likely needs to shoot better than that to be a real threat from outside, especially playing power forward.

Metu finishes pretty well at the rim, and has enough athleticism to be a lob threat either in transition or as the roll man. He shoots decently from midrange but likely not well enough to justify his number of attempts, and combining that with his struggles from outside leads to below-average efficiency numbers overall. However, Metu has taken fewer midrange attempts over the last couple seasons, leading to a career high 61% eFG%.

Even though he's likely best served to play center, Metu is a little undersized for that position at 6'10", and hasn't shown to be an effective rim protector yet. I'm not sure Metu should be in the rotation of a good team, but he has shown some value in past seasons, so he could stick around in the NBA a bit longer.
 
Cap Considerations
Metu has a $2.7 million team option for 2024-2025, and if that is declined he will be an unrestricted free agent with a $2.1 million cap hold and Non-Bird rights. This means that the highest starting salary the Pistons could offer him using the Non-Bird Exception is $3.1 million. This should be enough to retain Metu, since he settled for the minimum to come to Detroit. Alternatively, the Pistons could use cap space or the Room Mid-Level Exception to offer Metu more than $3.1 million. However, if they were really that interested in retaining him, they would simply pick up his option.

Other teams will have multiple ways to sign Metu as even teams without cap space could use the Non-Taxpayer MLE, Room MLE, Taxpayer MLE, or Bi-Annual Exception to sign him. It's also likely that Metu only gets minimum offers again, and may not even get fully-guaranteed offers.

Potential Teams: Hawks, Pistons, Trailblazers, Bulls, Heat

Predicted Contract: 1-year, $2.6 million (non-guaranteed) with the Hawks

Last updated: 6/9/2024

bottom of page