The Sacramento Bee is reporting that the Kings are waiting patiently while Ron Artest decides whether or not he’s going to opt-out of his contract.
The Kings basically are sitting back and waiting for forward Ron Artest and his agent, Mark Stevens, to decide whether to accept the final year ($8.45 million) of his contract or opt for free agency.
“I’m sure Mark is going to do his due diligence, and they will decide what they are going to do,” Kings basketball president Geoff Petrie said. “They have up to June 30 to make a notification of their decision.”
Here’s the deal: Artest, 29 in November, is like 99.9999 percent of all people: He wants to get paid. Preferably, it would be here because he likes it here, and the Kings, the owners of his Larry Bird rights, can pay him the most. Yet if the Kings won’t sign him to a long-term deal, Artest probably would prefer to go someplace where that is a possibility.
The Kings are playing salary cap poker. They don’t want to clog up the cap because they plan to make a free-agency splash sooner rather than later. Yet that plan might not coincide with those of Artest or Francisco García, whose rookie deal will end following the 2009-10 season.
Should Artest choose to opt out, he likely could get a deal in the two-year range averaging about $6 million. The Kings always can sign-and-trade, but that’s taking on money in return.
I almost named this post “the Sacramento Bee needs a reality check,” because if they think that Artest can only garner a two-year, $12 million contract on the open market, they are fooling themselves. He’s worth a lot more than that.
Sure, he’s crazy. But he’s been a pretty good citizen in Sacramento and teams around the league have noticed that. He’s just 28 and is a terrific player. He can play small forward or even power forward on a team that is playing small ball. Moreover, he’s quick enough to cover shooting guards as well, so the guy can guard three positions.
He averaged 20.5 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 2.3 steals, while shooting 45% from the field and 38% from three-point range… and all he can get is a two-year contract worth $6 million per season? That’s about the mid-level exception. At a bare minimum, someone would sign him to a four- or five-year deal at that price.
But if he does indeed opt-out, a more likely scenario is for the Kings to work out a sign-and-trade, though that would require Sacramento to take on salary, so they would probably need an expiring contract and some combination of draft picks and/or young prospects in return.
If the Kings aren’t willing to work out a two- or three-year extension, Artest should absolutely opt-out and see what the market will bear. I don’t think he’ll have any problem landing a long contract at the mid-level and he’ll probably find that he has some other suitors as well.
