The font office’s faith is in the Suns’ core.
Markieff Morris and brother Marcus Morris have signed four-year contract extensions to play with Eric Bledsoe in Phoenix through the 2018-19 season, the team announced Monday before the team’s media day.
The deals, which were negotiated by the total $52 million amount, will pay Markieff Morris $32 million over four years while Marcus will earn $20 million over that span, according to The Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro. The extensions kick in after the twins are paid their set salaries of around $3 million each this coming season.
“We are excited to be able to extend the contracts of Marcus and Markieff,” general manager Ryan McDonough said in a team statement. “They have had great success playing together at every level of basketball, including last season with the Suns. They have made great strides over the past year and we feel like they will continue to grow and improve. They are just entering their primes and we think they will play the best basketball of their careers over the course of the next five years.”
Locking up the twins could be surprising if one assumed Phoenix wanted to make a big free agent run next summer, but the decision means McDonough and president of basketball operations Lon Babby have invested their belief in this current core, one they hope will still include Goran Dragic after next summer.
Striking an agreement before the season was made more possible because the twins were willing to take a discount rather than testing the waters of restricted free agency next summer. They told the Philadelphia Inquirer this summer they wanted to play out their careers together, and it hinted greatly toward the potential for Phoenix to get them on a bargain deal.
"“That was our dream growing up – it’s our life dream to play with each other in the NBA,” Marcus said. “We’re together now. We try to make the best of it. Hopefully, we retire together.”"
Paying out $8 million a year to Markieff, the 13th draft pick from 2011, could turn into a huge value signing should he continue to progress. That’s already a decent looking contract for a starting power forward. Marcus’ $5 million per year average deal, as is, isn’t bad considering he was a near 10-point per game scorer this past season.
As an aside, the Suns’ decision to extend the twins probably had a lot to do with their decision to let forward Channing Frye walk this offseason. Frye signed in Orlando for a descending deal that starts at $8.6 million this season, according to ShamSports.
At the February 2013 trade deadline, Phoenix dealt a second-round pick to the Houston Rockets to acquire Marcus Morris in what appeared to be asset acquisition. Like the move this summer to sign Zoran Dragic away from Unicaja Malaga, it’s about using family dynamics to improve the team. The Suns hoped acquiring Marcus to team with Markieff would create “synergy” on the court, and indeed under Jeff Hornacek the brothers had a unique chemistry with one another.
Moving forward, the Suns have tagged themselves with enough contracts heading into next year that it could be tough to work out a major free agent signing without making trades. It’s all tough to say with a rising (perhaps steeply rising) salary cap — and for what it’s worth, the Suns still won’t have issues re-signing Goran Dragic because they hold his Bird Rights and can go over the cap to keep him.
“We’re projecting a national TV contract that’s about to double or more than double,” McDonough said at Suns media day. “We’re projecting a cap that’s going to escalate pretty sharply over the next couple of years. That’s not the only reason we did the deal with Eric and the extensions with the Morris twins, but it is a factor. We try to be forward thinking, we try to project not only where the cap is today but where it’s going to go and what it’s going to look like four or five years or now.”
If Phoenix finds a trade or free agent prospect that is too good to be true in the coming seasons, the Morris twins’ deals aren’t untradeable even if their progress levels off from its current rate. They have proven themselves sturdy and reliable, and under Hornacek they especially showed they can listen and learn (even if they sometimes forgot about the other three players on the floor). But that is why the Suns are banking on keeping them around.
As with the Bledsoe deal, the longterm agreement has turned asset acquisition into talent retention — and by way of player development.
“We are particularly pleased to have reached extension agreements with Marcus and Markieff before the start of training camp,” Babby said in a team statement. “There is an extraordinary bond between these twin brothers; they make each other better players and better men. We take pride in their growth and look forward to their bright futures.”