(SportsNetwork.com) – Lance Stephenson says he will play for the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n
The free-agent guard tweeted Wednesday that he was looking forward “to the next phase of my career and the wonderful opportunity to continue to grow as a player and as a person in Charlotte!”<\/p>\n
Stephenson has signed a three-year, $27 million contract with the Hornets that includes a team option for the final season, according to ESPN.com<\/p>\n
He turned down a five-year, $44 million offer from the Indiana Pacers after helping them reach the Eastern Conference finals in back-to-back seasons, according to the report.<\/p>\n
Stephenson, 23, averaged career highs in points (13.8), rebounds (7.2), assists (4.6) and minutes (35.3) in 78 games this past season.<\/p>\n
Questions about Stephenson’s behavior were raised during the Eastern Conference finals after he blew into the ear of LeBron James during Game 5 and got into a tussle with teammate Evan Turner in practice.<\/p>\n
He was fined twice for flopping in the series and was whistled for 14 technical fouls during the regular season, fourth-most in the league.<\/p>\n
“Indy, I had a great 4 years,” Stephenson wrote on Twitter. “Thank you Larry Bird, the fans, my coaches and teammates for the incredible experience.<\/p>\n
“I will never forget any of you! I now have to look to the next phase of my career and the wonderful opportunity to continue to grow as a player and as a person in Charlotte! I’m excited to play for this franchise and the fans!”<\/p>\n
Stephenson owns career averages of 9.1 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists across four seasons with Indiana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(SportsNetwork.com) – Lance Stephenson says he will play for the Charlotte Hornets. The free-agent guard tweeted Wednesday that he was looking forward “to the next phase of my career and the wonderful opportunity to continue to grow as a player and as a person in Charlotte!” Stephenson has signed a three-year, $27 million contract with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[122,121,120],"class_list":["post-20955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba","tag-bobcats","tag-charlotte","tag-charlotte-bobcats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20970,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20955\/revisions\/20970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}