Eric Bledsoe and the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday reached an agreement on a new contract worth five years and $70 million, according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski. The deal does not include any options and is fully guaranteed, reports Wojnarowski.
According to Paul Coro, the deal starts at $13 million in 2014-15 and includes $500,000 raises annually.
The signing comes following months of silence between the two sides before negotiations ramped up suddenly with training camp on the horizon.
“I learned long ago that it doesn’t matter how stormy the sea is as long as the ship comes in and today we are thrilled that the ship has come in and Eric will remain a Sun for a long time,” Suns president of basketball operations Lon Babby said in a statement. “He will be an integral part not only of our basketball team, but our Phoenix community.”
The news comes shortly after Bledsoe and agent Rich Paul flew to Phoenix — the guard’s first visit since leaving the team in April — to discuss a deal with the Suns showing willingness to pay out more than their initial four-year, $48 million offer. While a five-year max deal worth upwards of $80 million would have made Bledsoe a designated player, this deal does not do so. At $14 million a year, it does mean the team and Bledsoe’s camp met somewhere in the middle of the very far apart numbers that were rumored throughout a free agency stalemate.
Bledsoe and Paul had little communication with Phoenix until this week, outside of Suns owner Robert Sarver reportedly meeting with Paul during the LeBron James sweepstakes. But when there were talks over the last few days, they apparently went quite well and quite quickly. In hindsight, it seems that the silence over the last few months was more of an effort by Bledsoe and his management to receive a last-minute offer sheet rather than signs of a fractured relationship. After all, there did not need to be any decisions made until Oct. 1, when Bledsoe would have had to take the $3.7 million qualifying offer for one season.
“Lon, Ryan and the Suns have shown confidence in me, and I am looking to take that responsibility and help our team get better from last year and position ourselves to win an NBA championship,” Bledsoe through the team’s statement. “It’s why I came back to Phoenix. All summer, I knew that I really would be most comfortable coming back to Phoenix because of the great fans, my Suns teammates and our coaches. I am very happy it was able to work out this way.”
Maybe, just maybe, this is how a strong willed Paul operates differently from his more formally trained counterparts in the agent business. Paul and Bledsoe certainly can’t be disappointed in the deal they received.
Meanwhile, the Suns front office ends up taking on a lot of risk.
The length of the new contract is more surprising than the annual salary. Bledsoe underwent two knee surgeries in his first four years in the league, and while the meniscus surgery this January was related to the initial injury, it was far from a positive sign for a player will relatively few miles on his body.
The Suns likely know Bledsoe’s body best, and even a four-year deal worth $48 million hinted toward their confidence in the health of the 24-year-old guard. While he displayed question marks with turnover issues when he was healthy, the dual point guard system certainly makes that less of an issue, as does the depth with Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas in tow.
Moving forward, whether this sets a price for next season’s likely free agent, Dragic, is not known, but it’s quite possible The Dragon could earn as much or more than Bledsoe.
In the more immediate future, the Suns have their final piece of the puzzle — barring a big trade and with Zoran Dragic potentially being added to the bench — heading into training camp next week.
The biggest challenge for coach Jeff Hornacek is figuring out his guard rotation with a scary three-headed monster at point guard. For this coming season, that’s not a bad problem to have.
“We are thrilled Eric Bledsoe will be in a Phoenix Suns uniform for years to come,” Suns general manager Ryan McDonough added through the team statement. “Eric is one the most exciting and dynamic two-way players in the league. He played very well for us on both ends of the floor last season and we feel he is well on his way to establishing himself as one of the elite players in the NBA.”
Beyond 2014-15, Bledsoe’s deal looks less bad with the likelihood of an increasing salary cap, but no economical projection can say whether health will ultimately make this contract a good one or not.