Clippers Free Agency 2016: Pablo Prigioni Signs 2-Year Deal to Return to Houston

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, Pablo Prigioni will leave the Clippers to return to the Houston Rockets on a 2-year contract.

Free agent guard Pablo Prigioni has reached agreement on a two-year deal with Houston, league sources tell @TheVertical.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) July 14, 2016

Pablo was solid but unspectacular in one season as the Clippers' part-time backup.  The 39-year-old Argentinian point guard recorded 6.3 points, 5.7 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2.3 steals per 36 minutes.  He appeared in 59 of the Clippers' games for 13.9 minutes a night, normally playing in either garbage time or to help the Clippers' second unit offense.  Austin Rivers and Jamal Crawford are the normal offensive initiators for the Clippers' second unit, but neither is a true pass-first point guard.  Prigioni saw the floor better, directed traffic, and made smart plays.

However, his age limited him defensively and he was frustratingly passive on the offensive end, to the point of sometimes being a liability when the defense played off of him.  He shot just 6.4 times per 36 minutes, and 4.2 of those attempts were threes (normally spot-up attempts).  That means that when he was on the ball, he was almost nonexistent as a scoring threat.  A 38% career shooter from deep, Prigioni was unable to hit the 30% mark in a small sample size as a Clipper, which was disappointing.

Now, Pablo will return to his pre-Clipper team, the Houston Rockets, where he was a backup for 24 games in the 2014-15 season after a mid-season trade from the New York Knicks.  His two-year deal reportedly carries a team option for the second season, and is likely for the league minimum.The Clippers' third-string point guard is gone.