Sports

Mavericks’ Harris signs 5-year deal

Alando Tucker may have taken Devin Harris’ title as the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball all-time single-season scoring champ, but Harris still has something on Tucker: a bigger paycheck.

The former Wisconsin standout agreed Monday on the terms of a 5-year contract extension with the Dallas Mavericks, which is reportedly worth more than $42.6 million. The extension will be added on to the point guard’s current contract, which is set to expire at the conclusion of the upcoming season.

“Devin, along with Josh [Howard], those guys will carry the baton for us into the future,” Mavericks President of Basketball Operations Donnie Nelson told the Dallas Morning News. “Devin’s deal was something we were hopeful of getting done so that it doesn’t have to be weighing on his mind this season."

This past season, Harris set career-bests for points (10.2), assists (3.7) and rebounds (2.5) and also pushed for more and more playing time as the season wore on.

"I feel good about the commitment for another five years," Harris told NBA.com. "Hopefully now we can run with it."

Harris, a Wauwatosa, Wis. native and former Mr. Wisconsin Basketball, was a starter as a freshman on UW head coach Bo Ryan’s first team at the university — a team that surprised many by winning a share of the Big Ten Championship despite entering the season picked to finish as low as ninth in the conference.

As a sophomore, Harris clinched an outright Big Ten title for the Badgers by hitting a free throw with .4 seconds left in the season’s final game, sending a sold-out Kohl Center crowd into a frenzy.

Over his three years at Wisconsin, Harris won or shared two Big Ten regular season championships and a conference tournament championship, establishing himself as one of the school’s all-time greats.

Following his junior season, Harris declared for the NBA draft and was the No. 5 overall selection, going to the Dallas Mavericks.