Lewis' expensive sixth year incentive based
Brian Schmitz, Tim Povtak, Tania Ganguli Sentinel Staff Writers
10:12 PM EDT, July 12, 2007
Magic SF Rashard Lewis wanted a sixth year to sign with the club, but that final season is only partially guaranteed and he will have to meet certain incentives for it to fully kick in.
NBA executives were alarmed and puzzled after the Magic doled out a six-year contract estimated at $118.5 million to Lewis, who officially signed as a free agent Wednesday.
Addressing claims that the club significantly overpaid for Lewis, team President Bob Vander Weide said the Magic managed to get Lewis to agree to meet some provisions before they executed a sign-and-trade with Lewis' old team, the Seattle SuperSonics, that gave him a six-year deal.
Lewis will have to meet some incentives before the sixth year -- valued at an estimated $23.8 million -- becomes fully guaranteed.
"Before we'd agree to get into a sign-and-trade agreement with the player we wanted him to appreciate performance first,'' Vander Weide said. "The deal could be worth ($118.5 million) before it's all said and done or it may not. We really won't know until the contract is complete."
Lewis' sixth year incentive based
Last Note:
The Magic said they were hoping to re-sign Milicic, too, by creating salary-cap space, but they couldn't work a deal to move players. They said the SuperSonics originally wanted point guard Jameer Nelson, shooting guard J.J. Redick and small forward Trevor Ariza, plus two future first-round draft picks.
"They wanted all that and then some," Smith said.
10:12 PM EDT, July 12, 2007
Magic SF Rashard Lewis wanted a sixth year to sign with the club, but that final season is only partially guaranteed and he will have to meet certain incentives for it to fully kick in.
NBA executives were alarmed and puzzled after the Magic doled out a six-year contract estimated at $118.5 million to Lewis, who officially signed as a free agent Wednesday.
Addressing claims that the club significantly overpaid for Lewis, team President Bob Vander Weide said the Magic managed to get Lewis to agree to meet some provisions before they executed a sign-and-trade with Lewis' old team, the Seattle SuperSonics, that gave him a six-year deal.
Lewis will have to meet some incentives before the sixth year -- valued at an estimated $23.8 million -- becomes fully guaranteed.
"Before we'd agree to get into a sign-and-trade agreement with the player we wanted him to appreciate performance first,'' Vander Weide said. "The deal could be worth ($118.5 million) before it's all said and done or it may not. We really won't know until the contract is complete."
Lewis' sixth year incentive based
Last Note:
The Magic said they were hoping to re-sign Milicic, too, by creating salary-cap space, but they couldn't work a deal to move players. They said the SuperSonics originally wanted point guard Jameer Nelson, shooting guard J.J. Redick and small forward Trevor Ariza, plus two future first-round draft picks.
"They wanted all that and then some," Smith said.
posted by OVERWADED @ 11:56 PM
3 Comments:
At 3:44 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
I wanted the Magic to try and create salary-cap space so they could try and re-sign Darko, but not at the expense of Nelson, Redick, and Ariza, plus two future first rounders... that's insane!
Thank goodness Otis had enough sense to say no to the Sonics in that regard.
At 11:10 AM,
Matt said…
This whole statement by Bob Vander Weide is silly. By tying up incentives into the sixth year they may have saved a couple of hundred thousand dollars? Look, they have signed up the right guy and who is to say what the right value is? Market decides and there were other teams who would pay him the max salary, as well. End of story.
As for the trade that didn't go down, no credit is due to anybody. Obviously Seattle didn't want that deal so they asked for the impossible. Very common in business practice when a party does not care for a deal to happen.
At 7:39 PM,
Ben Q. Rock said…
Making that deal would have let us field a pretty formidable front-line: Dwight, Darko, and 'Shard. The bad news? A starting backcourt of Keyon Dooling and Carlos Arroyo. Yikes.
And of course the Magic are going to say those things about Lewis' contract. They sure as hell can't believe them, though. Otis and co. are fooling themselves if they think they got Lewis at a bargain.
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