LeBron won't sign contract extension

[baseline bum]

I'm no cap expert but they would have had to renounce rights on Z, Shaq, let AV walk this summer just to have any capspace. That's big-man depth gone.

Nah, I meant next summer. Usually a bird in the hand beats two in a bush, but I don't think Moon and Parker are going to be the difference in winning a le or not (that pretty much depends on what Shaq has in the tank and whether Mo Williams can play at his regular season level in the big games). I think I would have taken the gamble and hoped to entice LeBron to stay by adding another player at the borderline all-star or better level with the 2010 capspace.

Parker and Moons contracts are 2 year deals with un-guaranteed money in the final 3rd years. With the cap expected to drop, LeBron mighn't opt out, it looks like Ferry is looking at the 2011 off-season.

As bad as the economy is and as low as the cap might be, I have to think James is opting out this summer to get his big contract in before the 2011 CBA comes in and slashes player salaries across the board. In the post-Jordan era Stern and the owners never lose in these negotiations, and they're pushing for drastic reduction in the percentage of BRI paid out to the players as well as a hard cap.

EDIT: After considering the 2011 CBA, all of a sudden I'm starting to think an extension with Cleveland looks a lot more attractive to LeBron then I previously believed. If the owners get what they want for the third time in a row, James is going to have a hard time making up what he would get for that sixth year he'd miss by walking to New York or Chicago.

[KidCongo]

[CODE]Nah, I meant next summer. Usually a bird in the hand beats two in a bush, but I don't think Moon and Parker are going to be the difference in winning a le or not (that pretty much depends on what Shaq has in the tank and whether Mo Williams can play at his regular season level in the big games). I think I would have taken the gamble and hoped to entice LeBron to stay by adding another player at the borderline all-star or better level with the 2010 capspace.

Let me find some posts on a Cavs board addressing this.

As bad as the economy is and as low as the cap might be, I have to think James is opting out this summer to get his big contract in before the 2011 CBA comes in and slashes player salaries across the board. In the post-Jordan era Stern and the owners never lose in these negotiations, and they're pushing for drastic reduction in the percentage of BRI paid out to the players as well as a hard cap.

Actually I totally forgot about this point. I've always thought LeBron would opt out and sign the biggest contract he could (Cleveland) with the CBA going to change. Good point.

[KidCongo]

Nah, I meant next summer. Usually a bird in the hand beats two in a bush, but I don't think Moon and Parker are going to be the difference in winning a le or not (that pretty much depends on what Shaq has in the tank and whether Mo Williams can play at his regular season level in the big games). I think I would have taken the gamble and hoped to entice LeBron to stay by adding another player at the borderline all-star or better level with the 2010 capspace.

Shaquille O'Neal $20,510,000
LeBron James $17,580,000
Zydrunas Ilgauskas $17,311,611
TOTAL $55,401,611

That is the cap hold of each player, to keep each players bird rights.

Without signing Varejao, Moon, Parker this off-season the Cavs salary would have totaled to around $22million. Add in LeBron's cap hold if he opts out. It comes to around $39-40 million without draft picks. So the Cavs re-nounce Shaq and Z to sign Bosh, Amare etc. they would have just come under a salary cap that would be around $57-58 million.

The roster would have been
Mo/Gibson
West/Green
LeBron/Eyenga
Bosh or Amare/JJ Hickson
???/Darnell Jackson

Would LeBron have stuck around for a team with 2 starters, 1 undersized sg, 1 rookie, 1 2nd year player, 2 3rd year players and a chance at Chris Bosh?

I don't think he would. As the Cavs don't have bird rights on Shaq or Z, only the MLE and BAE + vet min. to get a starting PF (if they signed OKUR), C (if the signed Amare or Bosh), to get true SG/SF depth + a good 3rd or 4th big.

Now what if the cap dropped, the max FA's would have to take a paycut or the Cavs could only sign the Okurs of free agency.

Ferry has attained assets for depth and trades with the small contracts, whilst keeping a compe ive roster that looks to the future and present.

[pauls931]

Smart. Give it one shot with Shaq, then bail. I know every talks about bird rights etc, but I bet he makes enough on endorsements that he would walk away a million here or there to boost his image and probably make even more on endorsements.

[Thunder Dan]

really no surprises here. I'm not worried about him leaving, he is just smart and has the ability to keep his options open.

[SteveJobs]

I hope he gets the le next year so I can put him in a commercial.

[The TroutBum]

I hope he gets in a car wreck this year and loses both legs. Let's see how your options are after that, butt .

[23LeBronJames23]

I hope he gets in a car wreck this year and loses both legs. Let's see how your options are after that, butt .

lol Wtf?

[carrao45]

I hope he gets in a car wreck this year and loses both legs. Let's see how your options are after that, butt .

Who is that girl in your sig?

[duncan228]

LeBron James hasn't signed an extension. So what?
By Kelly Dwyer
Ball Don't Lie

LeBron James has stated his preference to remain with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but he won't sign a contract extension this summer. He'd rather wait until next summer, when the extension is still available alongside other free-agent options, and see what the climate is like then.

And, somehow, this is earthshaking.

This wasn't earthshaking in 2006, when LeBron opted to sign a three-year extension, leaving his options open should the Cavaliers (coming off a second-round loss to the Detroit Pistons) continue to surround James with, say, Larry Hughes (in the first year of a ridiculous five-year, $60 million contract) or Eric Snow.

It isn't earthshaking now, even in the wake of the Cavaliers following a season that saw them earn the NBA's best record, even in the wake of a trade that saw the Cavs send next-to-nothing to the Phoenix Suns for Shaquille O'Neal. Who, by the way, is working on a contract that expires next summer.

It's not news. This, the new Charlotte Bobcat uniform with pinstripes, is news. J.R. Smith's return to Twitterworld is news.

Not this. This is just a guy weighing his options. And, as basketball fans, we really need LeBron James to weigh his options. He has to get this one right, lest he waste his prime in the wrong place.

Everything's going terrifically for the Cavs. Yes, they backed into a bad matchup with the Magic last year, ending a 66-win season one round too early, but these things happen. Losing assistant coach John Kuester to the Pistons hurts, but these things happen. It's a long career and bad things happen. Isiah Thomas missed out on his first ring because of an ankle sprain. Michael Jordan missed out on his first ring because Scottie Pippen had a blinding migraine one particular May afternoon.

What rarely happens is the continued presence of the game's best player, playing on the team closest to his hometown, delivering on all the hype and dominating the league in a style unseen since Michael Jordan's prime. Not his early years. His prime.

It's a good problem to have. And, as stacked as the Cavaliers are, and as promising as 2009-10 will be, anything can happen. I don't want to go down the whole "[so-and-so] could be hit by a bus" route, but so-and-so could be hit by a bus. Someone could tear a ligament or break a wrist, or revert back to the poor coaching ways that left LeBron working on one of the more inefficient and unimaginative offensive teams in the NBA from 2003-2008.

That last bit, it's a tricky one. That could happen. And until LeBron actually sees what happens, he's going to hold off on committing to a team - any team - for what will be the duration of his basketball prime. You can't blame a guy for this. He can make his money at any time, mind you, this isn't about the dough. This is about winning. We should be applauding that. Cavalier fans, even, should be delirious.

So why the lack of a signed extension remains some sort of hint to Tony Kornheiser-types that he's even considering the New York Knicks is beyond me. Or even considering "Los Angeles," as Kornheiser pointed out last week. As if you're going to see "MVP James signs five-year deal with Lakers for full MLE" on the wire next summer. Ridiculous.

Better yet, the Cavaliers will have only around $34 million in salary on the books for 2010-11, plus LeBron James' cap hold. With the ever-shrinking cap, yes, this means that a pairing of James and Chris Bosh or (geez) Dwyane Wade is likely out of the picture (unless James and Bosh both agree to take a bit less to play for what would certainly be a champion), but this also means the Cavs can tinker like no other team, with James just about in hand.

Armed with the knowledge of how well O'Neal worked or didn't work, what Mike Brown may have been missing or needing during 2009-10's run (no matter how successful), the Cavs can tinker. And they can tinker with a GM in hand who has been at the helm for a while, with plenty of data and history and juice cards to deal. That wasn't the case in 2005, when newly hired Cavs GM Danny Ferry went after Larry Hughes, tossing big money at what was the best player left on the market.

And it is all about the winning. If it weren't, James would have signed by now. If James didn't opt-out, his 2010-11 salary would be a little more than $17 million next season. Because of the falling cap, James could stand to make as little as $15 million as a starting salary if he signs an extension next summer, depending on the BRI (basketball-related income) the league takes in.

Even the most optimistic estimates has James clocking in at $16 million to start next year, which means he's already giving back money just for the chance to go over options and make sure he has a place on a winner. That's commendable. And should the entire Cavalier roster break their shins in a team-building exercise (seriously, Mike Brown? Jai alai? During the playoffs?) gone wrong, and James shuffles off to another team, he'd be playing for less money that he could get in Cleveland.

And I don't want to hear about the supposed advantages he could get in the endorsement realm by heading to New York. This would be 2010, we're talking about. Everyone has cable TV, everyone has the internet, and James is just about at his saturation point endorsement-wise. The only change in prominence and name-recognition would come because he's dealing with twice as many newspapers, sports talk radio stations and an NYC-obsessed media.

So here's what we have, again.

The game's best player is almost certainly leaving money on the table in order to smartly and slowly weigh all his options, as he readies himself to sign the most important contract of his career. And before he makes a commitment to a team, any team, he wants to make sure the situation is right. And, in a rarity in pro sports, "situation" does not equal "$$$."

He's not holding any team hostage. The LeBron-to-New York stuff was hot and heavy all the way back in 2005-06. It was at full throat last year, as the Knicks started (finally) clearing salary for 2010, and the Cavs won more games than anyone else. You're telling me a few more misinformed "Pardon the Interruption" segments are going to break this team? Come on.

Here's what's going to break this team. Poor pick-and-roll defense. Poor help defense from Anderson Varejao(notes) on the baseline. Bad spacing, offensively. Poor offensive output and shooting from the power forward position. An offense that reverts to its 2003-2008 ickiness. Injuries.

That's it.

Not Tony Kornheiser. Not Nike, not Donnie Walsh, not Pat Riley, not Jay-Z, not David Stern and not LeBron James's unsigned contract extension.

LeBron James is weighing his options, and waiting to see if he has a winner to return to next summer. That's it.

Now move on.

[rapliketp]

LeBron can get more money re-signing with the Cavs next year than if he signed an extension now.

[23LeBronJames23]

LeBron can get more money re-signing with the Cavs next year than if he signed an extension now.

agreed