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Contract-less Gary Neal hops on Facebook to complain about ex-teammates' salaries

Gary Neal takes a kick at former teammate Cory Joseph. (Getty Images)
Gary Neal takes a kick at former teammate Cory Joseph. (Getty Images)

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NBA players aren’t all about the money. Players regularly give up more guaranteed money (or longer guaranteed contracts) at some outposts so as commit to squads that are either more conducive to championship contention, a greater fit, or (happily, save for the lost cash) both at once. For several superstars, merely signing a maximum contract extension means leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table that would have been there had the league and its players’ union not negotiated for maximum salary limits.

You can be damn sure, though, that when there is a rift in the locker room it probably has something to do with money. There are the occasional personality crises or a potential dance club partner that ended up in the arms of another forward on the team, but by and large the frustration will stem from jealousy over money. Even playing time issues can be tied directly to advanced minutes and the ability to gather more minutes, better numbers, and eventually a nicer position at the bargaining table.

Take former Washington Wizards guard (and current free agent) Gary Neal, via his Facebook page (and via Pro Basketball Talk), for instance:

I Was The Leading Scorer of The Bench (40) Games and The Best 3PT Shooter On The Washington Wizards And The Contracts My Fellow 2nd Unit Members Received

8 Mil Per Year
6.5 Mil Per Year
10 Mil Per Year
3 Mil Per Year

Garrett Temple signed with the Sacramento Kings at terms averaging $8 million per year this summer, part of a reasonable three-year deal. Ramon Sessions signed with the Hornets for two years and $12.3 million (an average of $6.15). Jared Dudley re-joined the Phoenix Suns for a three-year, $30 million deal (an average of … come on). Nene signed a one-year, $2.9 million deal.

All are former Wizards, teammates of Neal’s in 2015-16, that came off the bench. Two out of four only approximate the numbers that Neal provided, but if you’ve ever been on Facebook you surely know that math isn’t always the strongest suit of some of its users.

Neal remains unsigned, even after finishing second to Dudley on the Wizards in three-point percentage (again, his Facebook message is a little off), and after a season that saw the combo guard average a solid 9.8 points in 20 minutes a contest.

Ideally, he would seem to be the perfect bargain hire, and though Neal’s next team would be his fifth since leaving San Antonio just three years ago, players with his selective skill set often bounce from team to team on shorter deals, and they’re often included in trades. Role players like this usually don’t find a home in the second week of July, during the tail end of the free agent frenzy, and it’s OK to worry (if not on social media) if the offseason is passing one by.

Neal turns 32 during the first week of training camp, though, and he offers little by way of passing or defense on his way toward making two out of every five three-pointers. He also had to cut his season short midway through 2015-16 after suffering a season-ending tear in his hip. That brief scouting report, and the paragraph that preceded it, is an example of us being kind.

Gary Neal has a reputation as someone you just don’t want around your locker room. You might recall this number, from 2014:

And when it was over, Bucks teammates Larry Sanders and Gary Neal got into a heated argument in the locker room.

Neal was yelling loudly as he exited the locker room and Sanders would not comment on the argument as he exited. Earlier Bucks strength and conditioning coach Robert Hackett stepped between the two players to try to keep the situation from escalating.

Sanders was heard questioning Neal’s attitude. As Neal exited a few minutes later he yelled back, “I earned my money. Why don’t you try it?”

It wasn’t completely one-sided, but public sentiment at the time mostly lined up behind Neal.

The guard was the 29-year old vet, coming off of a long and individually successful playoff run with the San Antonio Spurs, working for “just” $3 million a year and in the face of a player in Sanders who was in the first year of a four-season, $44 million deal, working up a team-worst -26 in a 16-point loss to Phoenix that helped inspire the argument.

CSN Mid-Atlantic’s J. Michael then tossed a little lighter fluid on Neal’s reputation in the wake of the Facebook comment:

Teammates complained about his locker room behavior to the point that Drew Gooden, CSNmidatlantic.com was told by someone there at the time, asked, “What is wrong with that dude?” He rubbed some players the wrong way because, it was interpreted, all of Neal’s concerns about the offense involved getting himself better statistics so he could get paid this summer.

Another former teammate, reflecting on the season Sunday, spoke about feeling as if Neal was trying to show him up in front of teammates — this conversation with CSN took place almost 24 hours before the Facebook post — and concluded: “I should’ve punched him out.”

[…]

Said another teammate from 2015-16 after seeing Neal’s post Monday, via text: “Terrible teammate. All about himself.”

Jared Dudley, ever the mensch, offered this in response to being made aware of Neal’s shade while at Summer League. Via Chris Lingebach at CBS DC:

Once again, let’s give Gary Neal (the guy who has gone from San Antonio to Milwaukee to Charlotte to Minnesota to Washington to, he hopes, yet another team all in a 37-month span), the benefit of several doubts here.

Though his role off the bench isn’t the same as theirs, it is worth wondering why similarly-aged role players like Sessions, Temple, Dudley and Nene have already been picked up already. Neal’s most prominent skill figures to age well, 2016-17 will tip off nearly nine months after his hip injury, and he has several strong playoff runs on his resume. It’s true that players of his age and caliber usually don’t find homes until later in the summer, but as someone who signed his Wizards contract on July 9 of the last offseason, you can argue this away.

Still, you can’t go online and specifically (well, OK, two out of four ain’t bad) mention your ex-teammates’ upcoming salaries as a ham-fisted way of saying you should either make as much, near, half or even a fraction of what they’ll pull in during 2016-17. For all the knowledge about openly discussed salaries that float around the internet, this is just an absolute no-no for NBA players.

Outside of possibly discussing things with their franchise players, NBA general managers usually don’t consult with role and/or rotation players already under contract when deciding the free agent merits of a possible hire. One can safely conclude that, in regards to Gary Neal’s candidacy, any NBA GM with an internet connection won’t really have to guess as to whether or not the players on his roster would want Mr. Neal around their locker room in 2016-17. At any price.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!