Jerryd Bayless has decided to exercise his player option for 2013/14, keeping him under contract with the Grizzlies for another season, tweets ESPN.com's Marc Stein. The option will guarantee Bayless a $3.135MM salary for next year.
As Stein tweets, the decision comes as a bit of a surprise, since Bayless would have had a good chance to at least match that $3.135MM amount in free agency, if not exceed it. Instead, he'll be off the market, and will return to a Grizzlies backcourt that is facing the possibility of losing unrestricted free agent Tony Allen.
Bayless' now-guaranteed contract increases the Grizzlies' total team salary to about $61MM for 2013/14, which means that re-signing Allen at a fair rate will limit the Grizzlies' flexibility to make many additional moves. As we saw this past season, Memphis' new ownership group seems reluctant to go into the tax, and the tax line is expected to be at about $71.6MM for next year.