5:38pm: The deal is official, the team announced.
11:39am: The Blazers have struck a deal with Steve Blake, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). It’ll be a two-year deal for the biannual exception with a player option for the second season, according to Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com (on Twitter). The contract will be worth $4.2MM, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com, so assuming that’s an estimate, it appears the point guard is getting the full $4,247,465 value of the biannual.
Blake, a client of Joel Bell, was reportedly enamored with the idea of returning to play in Portland, where he spent parts of four seasons with the Blazers over two separate stints. The Lakers, Heat, Wolves and Knicks have all shown interest in the 34-year-old over the course of the offseason, though Minnesota wasn’t as high on him by the time free agency started, tweets Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities. While Blake spoke of his affection for the Lakers and Warriors, the two teams with which he spent last season, he’s headed back to Portland instead.
The Blazers appear to be using most of their mid-level to sign Chris Kaman, so that’s likely the extent of their free agent spending beyond the minimum salary, unless they can convince Mo Williams to sign for a salary of just 20% more than the roughly $2.77MM he earned last season. That’s the most they can give Williams, with whom the Blazers have only Non-Bird rights.