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Gabriel Deck: “Go back to Spain? The rumors weren’t true”

Gabriel Deck set off with the rest of his OKC teammates at the media day of the Thunder, one of the worst franchises of last season and a team in full reconstruction that will try to form a youth bloc solid enough to look to the future with more optimism. The Argentine (26 years old) has seen how the Oklahoma City press has questioned his fit in the project and how during the summer there was talk of a possible return to Spain and the interest of Barça, the great rival of Real Madrid, his club between 2018 and 2021.

Nevertheless, Deck quickly came up against all those rumors that had appeared in the press: “Nothing that has been said was true. My intention has always been to stay here, in the Thunder. ” Now he will get to work with preseason training in which he will have to earn a hole in the rotation after his strange arrival in the franchise in the middle of last season.

Earlier this month, his communications team put an end to rumors about his contract situation and the instability of his short-term future when he confirmed that Deck had flown to Oklahoma City to begin training for the training camp. The player had left Real Madrid in a surprising way (for times) on April 8 and he played ten games in the final stretch of the season (annus horribilis in full reconstruction: 22-50) for the Thunder (he averaged 8.4 points and 4 rebounds in 21.2 minutes on the court).

But his contract, of which the conditions and guarantees were not well known, left ends untied: he signed for more than 3 million dollars a year and four seasons, the end of the last one and another three, but without annual guarantees. That left the door open to the fact that, in a team with constant manufacturing fluctuations due to being in full reconstruction with a new young nucleus still in training, it was speculated that his NBA adventure had ended without having barely begun.

But no: Deck’s contract was (on September 1) partially guaranteed, which ensures the start of the NBA season. His new date on the horizon is January 10, at which time his contract will have to be guaranteed for the rest of this season, in which in total it would get to collect 3.6 million. For the next two, it has 3.4 signed for each one, but they will not be guaranteed until September 20, 2022 (for 2022-23) and 2023 (for 2023-24). The Thunder are barely reaching $ 80 million in guaranteed salary this season, so they can easily take on Deck’s to see if the player definitely makes a hole in the rotation of coach Mike Daigneault, who faces his second year. in office.

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