The Truth no longer plays in Brooklyn.
Paul Pierce agreed to sign a two-year deal with the Wizards worth $11 million, league sources confirmed to The Post.
ESPN, which first reported the news, said the second year of the deal — which is for the full mid-level exception — is a player option.
Pierce confirmed the news a short time later with a tweet.
“Obama, [John] Wall, here I come,” he wrote.
The Nets had the chance to match the offer to Pierce, sources said, but passed, determining the luxury tax burden — which would have been in excess of $20 million — too steep a price to pay after the franchise shelled out roughly $193 million in combined payroll and luxury tax commitments for the 2013-14 season, one in which the franchise advanced to the second round before losing in five games to the Heat.
The move means the Nets, once they complete the expected signings of 2011 second round pick Bojan Bogdanovic and Markel Brown — the first of the team’s three second round picks in last month’s draft — will have committed more than $120 million in payroll and luxury tax commitments to 13 players for their 2014-15 roster.
The Nets will then have about $76 million committed to eight players for the 2015-16 season, assuming Brooklyn picks up the third-year player options on Mason Plumlee and Sergey Karasev, as expected, declines the fourth-year option on Marquis Teague and Brook Lopez opts into the final year of his contract.
That would give the Nets a chance of getting under the much more punitive repeater tax — something they would like to do, according to league sources. The Post reported last month Prokhorov had agreed to cut back on the team’s spending in order to try and get a $1 billion evaluation for the franchise.
Minority owner Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Enterprises announced earlier this year it would be selling its 20 percent stake in the franchise. Prokhorov controls the other 80 percent.
Pierce averaged 13.5 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists for the Nets last season, the first of his 16-year career away from Boston after the Nets traded three first round picks and the right to swap a fourth to the Celtics to bring he, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry to Brooklyn in a draft-night deal last June.
It comes as a surprise — despite the massive savings not matching the offer from Washington guarantees — the Nets allowed him to move on.
“We’re not going to go crazy,” Nets general manager Billy King said recently when asked what the Nets may offer Pierce. “But we understand the value that he has for us and the impact and we’d like him back.”
With Pierce out of the picture, the Nets will have Bogdanovic, Karasev, Andrei Kirilenko and Joe Johnson capable of playing small forward, and have Kirilenko, Garnett, Mirza Teletovic and Mason Plumlee to play at power forward.
Pierce’s signature moment as a Net came in Game 1 of the Nets’ first-round series win over the Raptors, when after scoring nine points in a two-minute stretch late in the fourth quarter to quiet Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, he screamed “That’s why they got me here!” into the silence.
League sources said Pierce moving on will have no impact on his close friend Garnett, who they say will be returning for a 20th NBA season.
This decision will no doubt lead to a referendum on the blockbuster trade, which ensured the Nets would not control one of their own first round picks until 2019 for what has turned out to be one year of play from Pierce and, assuming he retires after the upcoming season, two from Garnett.
After the Nets lost to the Wizards in Washington on March 15, Pierce praised their up-and-coming young core.
“They’re coming into their own,” he said of the Wizards. “They’re growing up, right before our eyes.”
The 16-year veteran will provide the Wizards with a steady hand and will help them try to build on their impressive 2013-14 season, one in which they advanced to the second round of the playoffs, where they lost to the Pacers, after upsetting the Bulls in Round One.
Pierce’s decision caps a crazy two weeks for the franchise, which began when The Post first reported Jason Kidd had been granted permission to speak with the Milwaukee Bucks about becoming their head coach after a failed power play to be placed over general manager Billy King atop the team’s basketball operations department.
Since then, Kidd has left for Milwaukee and the Nets have hired Lionel Hollins to replace him, traded for Jarrett Jack and Sergey Karasev, will soon have officially agreed to terms with Bogdanovic and now have seen Pierce move on.