Duncan to exercise player option
According to the San Antonio Express News, San Antonio Spurs forward Tim Duncan will not opt of the final year of his contract.
As such, Duncan will play out the final year of his existing deal, during which he is scheduled to earn $21.2 million, and remains on track to become a free agent after the 2011-12 campaign.
The Express News states Duncan's camp agreed to stand pat with the strong possibility of a lockout looming on Thursday. The intentions are for Duncan to play through the final year of his contract and then sign a new deal after the 11-12' season. The report goes on to tell the team will not pursue an extension with Duncan before Thursday.
However, with no extension talk, and a lockout imminent, could a lockout season be the last for Duncan in a Spurs uniform? Highly doubtful.
Duncan restructured his contract once in the 07-08' season. That move was made so the team could pursue another player with top-level talent either via trade or free agency. The move eventually was made with a trade for forward Richard Jefferson, who obviously has not panned out in his two seasons with the Spurs.
Three days before the 2011 NBA draft, numerous trade rumors were swirling around the league Jefferson was being shopped around in a package that included guard Tony Parker. The rumored package wasn't being offered to get rid of Parker, but more so because he was the only tradeable asset the Spurs could lure a team with to take Jefferson's contract.
With a new Collective Barganing Agreement still uncertain, the Spurs organization is still uncertain as to how much they will be able to spend salary wise in free agency in the off season.
It suddenly occurs to me that after the last CBA was done, teams got a chance to drop a player from the salary cap card. This allowed teams to pick a player and drop them from the roster to be able to get under the cap or sign other players (I think). Team still paid the player, but they couldn't play for team and didn't count towards the cap. This is how we got Finley, he was the choice Cuban made for the player to drop. Am I remembering this right? Or was that for something else it came up? Maybe this might be an option, not to get hopes up, but you never know....
@saITgeek yeah the new CBA allowed a single "amnesty" player you could drop him, and he would not effect your cap space. you still have to pay him, UNLESS another team signed him, then that amount (his new contract) would come off your books so that the player could not "double dip" so to speak and get paid twice. so its not like steve francise who was getting paid by like 3 teams and not actually playing on any of them lol. it always struck me funny that every time finley would go with the spurs to dallas all the fans would booo him, it really shows how un informed MOST "fans" really are, finley didnt just up and leave, the mavs gave him the boot but the dallas fans dont know. just one more reason i can never root for dallas.
Spurs really got burned with Jefferson, huh? They have themselves to blame, unfortunately. Jefferson had already reached his peak and he's more of a fourth option on the offensive end than anything else.
The Spurs won't have enough to sign quality FA even if TD takes a pay cut. If they want something big the only way to do it is trading TP, while he still have some value.
@shawnthefreak i dont agree, the spurs are (pending the cba not change the cap) right at the cap limit and had duncan opted out and signed for say half of his 21 mil, then the spurs would in theory have about 10 mil PLUS both of their exceptions. they would have about 15 mil to play with so to speak.
while i am not surprised that duncan didnt opt out, i am a little disappointed in the possibility, you know the "what could have been".
