Report: Nets' offer sheet guarantees just $5M to Motiejunas

Turns out the Brooklyn Nets are as wary of Donatas Motiejunas' back issues as the Houston Rockets are.

Though the Nets signed the Rockets' restricted free agent to a reported four-year, $37-million offer sheet Friday, the terms of the deal are extremely team-friendly, with plenty of protections baked in, sources told The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski.

Because of the ruptured disk that cut his 2015-16 campaign in half and nixed a trade to the Detroit Pistons, the Rockets were reportedly unwilling to offer Motiejunas guaranteed money beyond the first year of any deal, and the Nets' offer reportedly doesn't even go that far. The contract will pay the 7-footer a guaranteed $5 million, but the team can void the remaining $3.5 million for the 2016-17 season if they waive him before Jan. 10, Wojnarowski reports.

That's obviously unlikely, given how hard it would be to swallow a $5-million sunk cost for a five-week tryout, but certainly not impossible if Motiejunas looks unplayable or gets re-injured right off the bat. If they retain him past the Jan. 10 deadline, the team then has to decide by March 1 whether to pick up his $9-million option for 2017-18, sources told Wojnarowski. The final two years of the contract are fully non-guaranteed.

That contract structure, and the number of outs it provides, may make the Rockets more likely to match the offer sheet. They have three days to decide whether or not to do so.