According to ESPN.com Ray Allen has re-signed with the Seattle Supersonics. Allen singed a deal that is very close to the 5 year $75 million dollar deal that the Sonics offered at the deadline and before the free agency period. The contract may push towards the $80 million mark.
Obviously, this is enormous for the Sonics future. This allows them to put the finishing pieces on their roster for 2005-06 with Ray Allen as the centerpiece.
In addition, this is the type of commitment that Nate McMillan was looking for from the Sonics. In my conversations with McMillan he was very concerned about where the Sonics were heading. This answers all the questions.
Give the Sonics tremendous credit for reading the market. The Sonics held strong to their offer on two fold. First, they read the market and realized that a 30-year-old shooting guard was not going to garner the maximum deal. Moreover, the Sonics set a plateau for how much they were willing to offer, because they didn’t want to over commit to one player and be unable to fill the rest of their roster. The Sonics held to that number and now should be able to re-sign the other players that they need to without putting themselves in luxury tax jeopardy.
Look for McMillan to re-sign in the near future. If McMillan does not want to return the signing of Allen will allow the Sonics to have their pick of whatever coach they would want.
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6 comments:
i'm happy for ray and sonic fans. it was good to see sonic ownership step up and pay the bill for a necessary star and leader. but by doing so, i again feel they should shutup about the operating losses and enjoy playing with their luxury lifestyle toy. eventually they'll see capital appreciation to compensate and hey these guys probably need the tax losses to balance their other financial gains anyways.
i do think there is a smalll chance that ray may not stay the whole five years in seattle. the window on trading him probably would be sometime in 2007 or early 2008 if for some reason the team doesnt continue to move forward. but it probably will.
ray may not quite be a top 5 player but he is pretty close and i'm very comfortable with him as team leader.
all the late haggling seemed to be on that last $5 million which is now going to be based on performance measures. i assume all five years are guaranteed but that hasnt been reported specifically yet.
locke says "According to ESPN.com Ray Allen has re-signed with the Seattle Supersonics. Allen singed a deal that is very close to the 5 year $75 million dollar deal that the Sonics offered at the deadline and before the free agency period. The contract may push towards the $80 million mark."
actually now that i read several other accounts, it may be 80+5=85 million. and that really isnt that close to the prior sonic position. babby said they showed the sonics a more than $80 clipper offer and the sonics moved based on the market. i still understand why they played it this way but they did move significantly- it appears.
Great news for the Sonics. I have to quibble with your notion of Sonics having played it smart, though. By playing chicken with him, they cost themselves $5 million. They could have had him for 75 + 5 bonus; now they're paying 80 + 5. AND, they probably could have wrapped up Nate right after the season.
Also, credit Ray for not going for the extra money (Clipps) and not insisting on a 6th year which Wally had suggested the Supes were willing to do if that's what it took to sign him.
and another footnote. many people said ray wasnt going to get kobe bryant money on the free market because he is turning 30. kobe is 3 years younger.
it is true that he is only getting a 5 year deal and kobe got a 7 year, more money contract.
but if you compare the first 5 years of kob'es contract to ray's, ray will get 95% of what kobe got ($85 million to kobe's approximate $89 million for same time length) or 90% if he doesnt meet the incentives.
that's pretty close to kobe money and ray / lon cooper got the sonics to pay market value. and maybe a little too much if you ask me. looking ahead i wouldnt really want ray's $20+ million salaries on the books in year 4 and 5.
I have to tip my hat to the Sonics on this one. Ya it was alot of money but if you wanna roll with the big boys you gotta pay the piper. With the addition of a Nate McMillan signing this really gives the Sonics a 3-5 year window of legitamely competing for a championship.
The sonics front office usually gets demonized in the media around here but I think they definitely stepped up and made the right move here.
I think the Sonics underestimated the 'good citizen' bonus that Ray was going to get, of course he was going to get offers of 80+ for 5. He proved to be a strong team leader this year where all the free agents on the Sonics could have been a disaster, he shows up to play every night, he came up huge in the playoffs and he hasn't tried raping anyone that I know of unlike a certain other guard everyone talks about and he fills up a stat sheet as well as anyone in this league. The only thing he doesn't do is play solid man on man D and guess what, most GM's pay for stats. Sure he's a little older than we would like but Ray's game isn't as dependent upon pure athleticism like most 2 guards, both Mitch Richmond & Reggie Miller, shooting guards who depended on a smooth jumpshot didn't start to decline til after their mid 30's.
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